WHY -WE -MAY 

BELIEVE-IN-LIFE 

AFTER ■  DEATH 

Charles- Edward 

Jefferson. 


WHY  WE  MAY  BELIEVE  IN 
LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 


EapmonU  JF*  West  jflfomotial  lectures 
on  3fmmottaiitp 


WHY  WE    MAY  BELIEVE    IN 
LIFE  AFTER    DEATH 


BY 

CHARLES  EDWARD  JEFFERSON 

PASTOR  OF  THE   BROADWAY  TABERNACLE 
NEW  YORK 


BOSTON  AND   NEW  YORK       '      " 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
(Stfce  fttoer?ibe  tyxzM  Cambri&ge 
1911 


COPYRIGHT,   I91 1,   BY   CHARLES  EDWARD  JEFFERSON 
ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Published  September  iqn 


oc/v>      Y  tVLvu^v^a-C1, 


(MmxaA/o     \ 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

This  volume  represents  the  first  of  the  series 
of  Raymond  F.  West  Memorial  Lectures  at  the 
Leland  Stanford  Junior  University.  These  lec- 
tures were  delivered  on  February  15  and  16, 
191 1,  by  Rev.  Charles  E.  Jefferson,  D.D., 
LL.  D.,  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  Church  of 
New  York  City.  The  conditions  of  the  lecture- 
ship are  set  forth  in  the  following  letter  from  its 
founders : 

In  memory  of  our  beloved  son,  Raymond 
Frederic  West,  a  student  in  Leland  Stanford 
Junior  University,  who  was  drowned  in  Eel 
River,  in  California,  on  January  18,  1906,  be- 
fore the  completion  of  his  college  'course,  we 
wish  to  present  to  the  trustees  and  authorities 
of  the  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University,  at 
Palo  Alto,  California,  the  honored  Alma  Mater 
of  our  son,  the^sum  of  ten  thousand  dollars 
v 


615851 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

($10,000) ,  to  be  held  as  a  fund  in  perpetual  trust, 
for  the  establishment  of  a  lectureship  on  a  plan 
similar  to  the  Dudleian  Lectures  and  the  Inger- 
soll  Lectures  at  Harvard  University. 

By  this  plan,  in  each  collegiate  year,  or  on 
each  alternate  year,  at  the  discretion  of  the  Board 
of  Trustees,  from  one  to  three  lectures  shall  be 
given  on  some  phase  of  this  subject :  "  Immor- 
tality, Human  Conduct,  and  Human  Destiny." 

Such  lectures  shall  not  form  a  part  of  the 
usual  college  or  university  course,  nor  shall  they 
be  delivered  by  any  professor  or  instructor  in 
active  service  in  the  institution.  Such  lecturer 
may  be  a  clergyman  or  a  layman,  a  member  of 
any  ecclesiastical  organization,  or  of  none,  but 
he  should  be  a  man  of  the  highest  personal  char- 
acter and  of  superior  intellectual  endowment. 
He  shall  be  chosen  by  the  Faculty  and  the  Board 
of  Trustees  of  said  University  in  such  manner 
as  the  Board  of  Trustees  may  determine,  but 
the  appointment  in  any  case  shall  be  made  at 
least  six  months  before  the  delivery  of  said 
lectures. 

vi 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

The  above  sum  is  to  be  safely  invested,  and 
the  interest  thereof  is  to  be  divided,  at  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  into  two  parts, 
the  one  an  honorarium  to  the  lecturer,  the  other 
for  the  publication  of  the  said  lectures,  or  the  gra- 
tuitous distribution  of  a  number  of  copies  of  the 
same  if  published  by  the  author. 

The  manuscript  of  the  course  of  lectures  shall 
become  the  property  of  the  University,  and  shall 
be  published  by  the  University  unless  some  other 
form  of  publication  is  more  acceptable. 

The  course  of  lectures  shall  be  known  as 
the  "Raymond  F.  West  Memorial  Lectures 
on  Immortality,  Human  Conduct,  and  Human 

Destiny." 

F.  W.  WEST, 
MARY  B.  WEST. 
Seattle,  Wash., 
January  /S,  igio. 


,  CONTENTS 

I.   Reasons   for  a  Restudy  of  Hu- 
man Destiny i 

II.   The    Argument    against    Immor- 
tality     .49 

III.   The  Argument  for  Immortality  112 


WHY  WE   MAY   BELIEVE 
IN   LIFE   AFTER   DEATH 


REASONS    FOR   A   RESTUDY  OF   HUMAN 
DESTINY 

A  superficial  survey  of  the  world 
to-day  would  probably  convince  the 
average  observer  that  men  in  the  twen- 
tieth century  are  not  especially  inter- 
ested in  a  life  beyond  death.  The  word 
Immortality  has  a  far-off  sound  and  sug- 
gests a  topic  which  does  not  touch  the 
nerve  of  the  world's  living  concern. 
Most  men  are  too  busy  to  think  of  next 
year  j  how  then  can  they  find  time  to 
think  of  things  beyond  time's  horizon  ? 
One  man  has  purchased  a  piece  of 
i 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

ground,  another  has  bought  a  yoke  of 
oxen,  and  another  has  married  a  wife, 
and  each  man  begs  to  be  excused  from 
a  banquet  at  which  nothing  is  served 
except  thoughts  in  regard  to  the  destiny 
of  the  soul. 

To  others  the  problem  presents  no 
appeal  because  they  are  willing  to 
leave  all  such  matters  with  God.  If  he 
wishes  us  to  live  after  death  his  will 
shall  be  done,  and  if  he  does  not  wish 
us  to  live  after  death,  our  life  will  end 
at  the  grave.  Such  questions  belong 
not  to  man,  but  to  God.  They  are  high. 
We  cannot  attain  unto  them.  This  is 
the  attitude  of  not  a  few. 

There  are  others  who  are  nettled  by 
an  invitation  to  think  on  the  soul's  fu- 
ture, feeling  that  we  have  enough  to  at- 
tend to  if  we  do  our  duty  in  the  world 

2 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

which  now  is.  "  One  world  at  a  time  " 
is  a  motto  which  is  supposed  to  em- 
body final  wisdom,  and  if  men  will  only 
apply  themselves  to  the  things  which 
now  concern  them,  they  will  have 
neither  the  time  nor  the  disposition  to 
pry  into  the  things  which  are  hidden 
from  human  sight.  Byron  at  twenty- 
three  petulantly  exclaimed:  "I  will 
have  nothing  to  do  with  your  Immor- 
tality; we  are  miserable  enough  in  this 
life,  without  the  absurdity  of  speculat- 
ing upon  another."  / 

Certain  men  are  too  timid  to  approach 
the  subject.  They  are  constitutionally 
afraid  of  the  mysterious  and  unknown. 
They  feel  uneasy  in  the  twilight,  be- 
cause it  suggests  the  dark.  Some  of 
them  have  rejected  the  idea  of  a  life  to 
come.  Pretensions  to  eternity  they  think 

3 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

smack  of  conceit.  They  are  far  too 
humble  to  put  forth  such  lofty  and  far- 
reaching  claims.  Mental  timidity  often 
wears  the  garb  of  modesty.  Others  are 
inclined  to  believe  in  the  soul's  sur- 
vival, but  the  reasons  for  their  belief 
they  do  not  care  to  pry  into.  They  think 
it  hazardous  to  examine  the  grounds 
for  so  great  a  hope.  They  are  convinced 
that  it  is  a  good  thing  to  believe  in 
Immortality,  whether  it  is  true  or  not. 
Such  a  belief  smooths  the  way  and  com- 
forts the  heart,  and  so,  even  though 
every  life  ends  at  the  grave,  it  would  be 
better  to  have  everybody  believe  that 
he  is  to  live  on  forever.  Even  a  delu- 
sion is  to  be  tenaciously  clung  to,  if  only 
it  makes  life  a  little  brighter.  A  lie,  if 
it  brings  forth  good  fruit,  is  more  de- 
sirable than  a  disconcerting  truth.  For 

4 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

fear  that  you  may  find  that  the  truth  is 
depressing,  you  had  better  not  try  too 
hard  to  find  it. 

Not  a  few  take  no  interest  in  the  be- 
lief in  Immortality,  because  they  consider 
it  a  dogma  of  religion.  They  do  not 
care  for  dogmas  of  any  sort.  The  idea 
of  a  future  life  is,  they  hold,  a  tenet  of 
Christianity,  one  of  the  superstitions 
propagated  by  the  Christian  Church. 
Only  the  pious  are  supposed  to  want  to 
live  forever,  and  piety  is  the  last  offense 
with  which  some  men  are  willing  to  be 
charged.  Since  the  religion  of  Christ  is 
outgrown  and  since  the  Church  of 
Christ  is  obsolescent,  a  man  who  is 
abreast  of  the  times  will  not  concern 
himself  with  anything  which  the  Church 
has  taught.  Many  a  man  would  openly 
confess  his  belief  in  the  life  to  come, 
S 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

were  it  not  for  his  fear  of  being  counted 
pious. 

There  are  those  who  spurn  the  pro- 
mise of  a  life  beyond  death,  because 
they  consider  themselves  above  it.  They 
need  no  such  inspiration,  and  they  can 
dispense  with  all  such  comfort.  A  man 
ought  to  be  brave  enough,  they  assert, 
to  do  his  full  duty  without  contemplat- 
ing any  future  rewards ;  and  a  man  ought 
to  be  noble  enough  to  keep  himself 
clean  from  the  world's  pollutions  with- 
out the  fear  of  what  may  happen  to 
him  on  the  other  side  of  death.  Immor- 
tality, so  these  men  think,  is  a  doctrine 
formulated  for  the  purpose  of  wheed- 
ling men  into  virtue  and  frightening 
them  out  of  sin.  The  full-statured  man 
needs  no  coaxing  and  cannot  be  bullied; 
and  therefore  the  conception  of  an  un- 
6 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

seen  world  has  no  part  to  play  in  man's 
life  on  earth. 

There  are  others  who  are  prejudiced 
against  the  doctrine  because  the  dis- 
cussion of  it  carries  one  into  the  region 
of  shadows  and  mists,  of  guesses  and 
dreams.  All  sorts  of  legerdemain  and 
charlatanism  are  possible  in  dealing 
with  so  elusive  and  nebulous  a  subject. 
When  one  leaves  the  contemplation  of 
the  world  of  time  and  sense,  and  be- 
gins to  speculate  about  a  world  which 
no  eye  can  see,  he  leaves  the  solid 
ground  which  was  meant  for  human 
feet  and  tries  to  walk  on  air.  Men 
of  a  practical  bent  have  an  antipathy 
to  subjects  which  do  not  take  hold 
of  the  shop  and  the  market-place,  and 
feel  ill  at  ease  when  asked  to  grapple 
with  a  problem  which  cannot  be  stated 
7 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

in  terms  of  the  market  or  discussed  in 
a  Board  of  Trade. 

There  are  others  who  do  not  care  to 
discuss  such  questions,  or  even  to  think 
about  them,  because  all  such  thought 
and  discussion  is  in  their  opinion  use- 
less. They  have  surrendered  all  hope  of 
being  able  to  arrive  at  convictions  in  re- 
gard to  the  destiny  of  man.  All  that  is 
possible  is  an  opinion,  and  the  opinion 
when  obtained  is  without  value.  The 
Unseen  World  is  a  Sphinx.  You  may 
shout  into  it  your  questions,  but  you 
receive  no  answer.  The  problem  pre- 
sented by  death  is  insoluble.  The  search 
for  light  has  been  ceaseless,  but  it  is  a 
search  which  will  never  be  rewarded. 
The  desire  to  know  has  been  a  devour- 
ing one,  but  it  will  never  in  this  world 
be  satisfied.  These  men  have  taken  re- 
8 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

fuge  therefore  in  science.  Science  deals 
with  what  can  be  observed  and  verified. 
Immortality  lies  beyond  her  pale.  It  is 
the  part  of  wisdom  to  keep  one's  self 
within  a  circle  in  which  there  is  light.  In 
regard  to  all  questions  concerning  the  fu- 
ture, the  only  defensible  answer  is:  "I 
do  not  know."  There  is  this  consola- 
tion, however,  —  so  these  agnostics  go 
on  to  say,  —  belief  on  matters  such  as  this 
is  of  no  importance.  The  man  who  be- 
lieves in  Immortality  is  no  better  for  his 
belief,  and  the  man  who  does  not  be- 
lieve is  no  worse  for  his  disbelief.  The 
hope  of  Immortality  is  nothing  but  a 
fancy  which  has  no  power  to  touch  the 
springs  of  action,  or  influence  the  char- 
acter and  flow  of  life.  Man's  destiny  is 
a  field  of  speculation  in  which  the  idle 
or  inquisitive  may  amuse  themselves, 
9 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

but  into  which  men  may  refuse  to  go 
without  condemnation  or  appreciable 
loss.  And  thus  it  comes  to  pass  that  in 
the  twentieth  century  some  men  hold 
themselves  above  the  problem  of  the 
soul's  future,  others  consider  themselves 
beneath  it,  while  others  pass  by  on  the 
other  side. 

But  it  must  not  be  concluded  that 
Immortality  is  a  subject  which  has  been 
banished  from  men's  business  and  bos- 
oms, or  that  the  present  generation  has 
ceased  to  take  interest  in  questions  that 
lay  hold  of  the  Unseen.  It  is  true  that 
the  soul's  future  is  not  often  made  the 
subject  of  newspaper  editorials,  nor  are 
the  columns  of  our  magazines  filled 
with  meditations  on  death  and  what  lies 
beyond.  Immortality  is  not  a  common 
topic  of  conversation  in  high  society  or 
10 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

in  low,  and  men  do  not  discuss  it  at  the 
corners  of  the  streets.  But  the  world  is 
not  to  be  judged  from  what  one  sees  in 
public  print.  There  are  regions  into 
which  reporters  do  not  venture,  and  con- 
cerning which  the  wisest  writers  have 
meagre  knowledge.  A  whole  world  of 
thought  and  feeling  lies  beyond  the  ken 
of  those  who  write,  and  it  is  the  great- 
est subjects  about  which  men  are  often 
most  reluctant  to  speak.  Because  a  man 
does  not  present  his  thoughts  on  Im- 
mortality to  the  first  man  he  meets,  it 
does  not  follow  that  he  has  no  thoughts 
upon  the  subject.  The  daily  press  re- 
ports events  in  the  world  of  action,  it 
does  not  claim  to  register  the  move- 
ments in  the  vast  and  hidden  world  of 
thought.  The  eye  which  beholds  the 
surface  only,  may  conclude,  from  the 
ii 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

widespread  frivolity  and  indifference, 
that  all  thought  of  high  themes  has  been 
crushed  out  of  the  souls  of  men;  but 
on  looking  closely  it  will  be  discovered 
that  underneath  the  bales  and  barrels 
and  boxes,  the  games  and  races  and  dis- 
sipations, the  human  heart  in  our  age 
as  in  every  age  is  pondering  things  un- 
seen. 

The  men  who  shout  it  from  the  house- 
top that  they  have  given  up  the  hope 
of  Immortality  are  only  few  in  number 
compared  with  that  great  company  who 
go  down  into  the  valley  that  is  dark, 
expecting  to  come  out  into  the  light. 
It  is  true  that  sundry  classes  do  not 
allow  thoughts  of  a  world  beyond  to 
tarry  long  in  their  mind,  but  there  are 
other  classes,  larger  and  more  numer- 
ous, to  whom  such  thoughts  are  con- 
12 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

stant  visitors.  The  great  company  of 
the  dying,  in  the  days  that  precede  the 
final  hour,  find  themselves  face  to  face 
with  a  question  which,  however  unin- 
teresting and  remote  in  the  days  of 
health,  fixes  a  steady  gaze  upon  them 
as  they  move  gradually  toward  the  Dark. 
William  Cowper,  the  English  poet,  was 
at  one  time  so  full  of  life,  he  fancied  he 
should  never  die,  till  a  skull  thrown  out 
before  him  by  a  grave-digger,  as  he  was 
passing  through  St.  Margaret's  church- 
yard in  the  night,  recalled  him  to  a 
sense  of  his  mortality.  Soon  or  late  every 
man  comes  within  sight  of  the  cemetery 
in  which  is  to  lie  not  only  another  man's 
skull,  but  his  own.  There  is  not  an  hour 
of  day  or  night  in  which  a  human  being 
does  not  learn  that  his  hours  on  earth 
are  numbered,  and  to  every  one  who 
13 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

reaches  that  solemn  hour  the  question 
is  of  thrilling  interest  :  "  If  a  man  die, 
shall  he  live  again  ?  " 

Next  come  the  great  throng  of  the 
bereaved.  They  have  but  recently  stood 
by  an  open  grave,  and  their  thoughts 
keep  wandering  into  the  realm  that  lies 
beyond.  The  vanished  loved  one  carries 
them,  in  spite  of  themselves,  into  regions 
unseen.  The  wife  who  has  lost  her  hus- 
band, the  mother  who  has  lost  her  child, 
the  daughter  who  has  lost  her  mother, 
the  friend  who  has  lost  his  friend,  all 
find  that  the  present  world  is  too  nar- 
row to  contain  their  thoughts,  and  stub- 
born questionings  stir  within  them, 
which  cannot  be  suppressed.  If  you  are 
tempted  to  say  that  no  one  is  thinking  of 
the  world  beyond,  remember  the  innu- 
merable company  of  those  who  weep. 
14 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

Lift  up  your  eyes  again  and  look 
upon  the  great  army  of  the  defeated,  the 
bruised  and  baffled,  the  crushed  and  dis- 
consolate, the  men  and  the  women  over- 
taken by  desolating  experiences  which 
have  left  the  whole  earth  a  desert  sur- 
rounded by  prison  walls.  It  is  when  all 
the  avenues  on  the  earth  are  blocked, 
that  the  soul  makes  its  escape  upward. 
That  way  is  always  open,  and  it  is  those 
who  suffer  who  most  easily  find  it.  It  is 
when  the  heart  is  weighted  down  with  a 
load  which  crushes,  that  the  spirit  learns 
how  to  walk  along  the  ascending  way. 

Who  never  ate  his  bread  in  sorrow, 
Who  never  spent  the  midnight  hours 
Weeping  and  watching  for  the  morrow, 
He  knows  you  not,  ye  Heavenly  Powers ! 

But  it  is  not  simply  the  mournful  to 
whom  thoughts  of  eternity  keep  recur- 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

ring.  They  come  also  to  the  glad  and 
the  jubilant,  to  the  strong  and  the  tri- 
umphant. In  many  a  solitude  there 
walks  to-day  a  Wordsworth  listening 
to  the  intimations  of  Immortality,  and 
in  many  a  closet  a  deep-eyed  Socrates 
ponders  the  mystery  of  an  endless  life. 
Philosophy  has  always  been  fascinated 
by  the  subject,  and  poetry  has  never 
been  able  to  let  it  alone.  Science  is  in- 
creasingly interested  in  it,  and  the  circle 
of  those  who  are  pursuing  systematic 
investigation  into  all  the  phenomena 
which  may  possibly  throw  light  upon 
the  problem  is  constantly  enlarging. 
Having  found  so  much  in  the  world 
which  she  can  see,  science  is  not  con- 
tent to  leave  untouched  the  world  which 
she  cannot  see.  Man  is  the  most  puz- 
zling and  promising  of  all  creatures, 
16 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

and  science  will  pursue  him  even  into 
the  realm  of  night.  Thinkers  are  drawn 
irresistibly  to  the  great  and  taxing  sub- 
ject, and  so  also  are  lovers.  It  is  the  pas- 
sion of  love,  as  Plato  long  ago  pointed 
out,  which  gives  insight  into  the  world 
unseen.  Love  at  its  highest  demands 
more  time  than  this  brief  life  can  offer, 
and  plays  exultantly  with  thoughts  of 
the  infinite  and  eternal.  When  has  love 
been  so  cold  and  stupid  as  not  to  care 
whether  the  grave  is  the  end  or  not? 
By  the  sheer  force  of  her  divine  passion 
she  leaps  toward  the  illimitable.  The 
thought  of  endless  existence  gives  her 
rapture,  the  thought  of  extinction  causes 
pain.  But  whatever  love  may  see  or  not 
see  in  the  darkness,  she  cannot  cover  her 
eyes  or  cease  looking.  It  is  her  nature 
to  look  beyond  the  horizons  of  time. 

*7 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

Shall  we  mention  also  the  children, 
and  add  them  to  the  great  host  of  those 
who  are  thinking  of  the  world  beyond  ? 
Was  there  ever  a  child  whose  thoughts 
did  not  play  round  the  grave,  and  whose 
fancy  did  not  paint  pictures  of  heaven 
and  hell?  Wonder  is  instinctive  to  the 
young  heart,  and  one  of  the  earliest 
causes  of  wonder  is  death  and  the  mys- 
tery into  which  it  opens.  Childhood  is 
not  all  laughter,  nor  is  youth  unbroken 
play.  We  hear  the  laughter  and  we  see 
the  play,  but  we  do  not  stop  to  measure 
the  solemn  ponderings  and  holy  wonder- 
ings  of  the  child-heart.  However  it  may 
be  with  us  after  we  are  older,  all  chil- 
dren are  natural  believers  in  the  unseen 
world. 

The  question  of  Immortality,  then, 
is  a  human  question.  It  belongs  to  the 
18 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

scholar  and  also  to  the  man  in  the 
street.  Kings  and  peasants  alike  ponder 
it.  It  beckoned  to  us  when  we  were 
children,  it  will  haunt  us  when  we  are 
oid.  Philosophers  and  theologians  dis- 
course about  it,  and  unlettered  and 
humble  folk  feel  more  than  they  are 
able  to  express.  Unknown  and  un- 
noticed men,  living  in  lonely  places, 
turn  wistfully  again  and  again  in  their 
quiet  hours  toward  that  mystery  which 
flows  round  all  the  world.  The  man  of 
the  schools  and  the  man  who  cannot 
read  stand  side  by  side  and  peer  into 
the  abyss  which  yawns  round  the  edges 
of  the  Seen. 

It  is  an  old  question  which  we  are 

propounding,  but  it  is  a  question  ever 

new :  "  If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again  ?  " 

The  question  is  kept  fresh  by  death.  So 

19 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

long  as  men  keep  on  dying,  the  heart 
will  continue  to  ask  the  old,  old  ques- 
tion. If  we  could  banish  death  we 
should  slay  the  question.  It  is  the  fu- 
neral bell  which  calls  men  inexorably 
to  face  the  ancient  problem.  No  ques- 
tion ceases  to  be  interesting  simply  be- 
cause it  has  often  been  asked  before. 
An  experience  is  not  trite  because  it  is 
as  old  as  humanity.  Death  is  not  com- 
monplace to  any  one  of  us.  No  one  of 
us  has  experienced  it,  and  therefore  we 
gaze  upon  it  with  awe  and  wonder. 
When  we  shall  at  last  drink  of  the  mys- 
terious cup,  the  experience  will  be  as 
novel  to  us  as  it  was  to  the  first  man 
who  fell  on  death.  This  is  why  the 
questions  which  spring  out  of  the  grave 
have  a  perennial  fascination.  Age  can- 
not wither  them.  They  thrill  the  heart 
20 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

and  pierce  it  in  the  twentieth  century 
as  they  did  in  the  first. 

But  is  not  the  answer  to  the  question 
of  the  soul's  future  evermore  the  same? 
Do  not  the  arguments  in  favor  of  sur- 
vival and  the  arguments  opposed  to  it 
remain  practically  unaltered  ?  Has  not 
everything  on  both  sides  been  said 
which  it  is  possible  for  reason  to  dis- 
cover or  ingenuity  to  conceive?  Does 
not  each  repeated  discussion  leave  us 
where  we  were  at  the  outset,  and  is  not 
every  investigation  therefore  barren  and 
time  spent  upon  it  wasted  ? 

Why,  then,  take  up  the  subject  anew  ? 
Why  not  let  it  alone  ?  The  answer  is, 
We  cannot  let  it  alone.  You  can  no 
more  let  death  alone  than  you  can  let 
love  alone,  or  life.  We  are  so  consti- 
tuted that  we  instinctively  take  hold  of 

21 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

it.  We  may  run  away  from  it  for  a  sea- 
son, but  soon  or  late  we  find  ourselves 
back  with  it  again.  The  scientist  may 
give  himself  up  to  the  study  of  matter, 
and  the  philosopher  may  lose  himself 
in  the  contemplation  of  earthly  rela- 
tions, but  the  common  man  will  shout 
from  the  street  through  the  window  the 
question  :  "  If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live 
again?"  The  question  is  forced  upon 
the  heart  by  the  order  of  earthly  expe- 
rience, and  every  generation  must  give 
its  own  answer,  and  buttress  its  con- 
clusion with  the  best  reasons  it  can 
find. 

The  argument  for  Immortality  is  al- 
ways changing,  because  we  are  living 
in  a  growing  world.  The  argument  of 
Socrates  recorded  in  the  "Phaedo  "  will 
not  satisfy  the  minds  of  men  living  now. 

22 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

We  are  citizens  of  a  changed  world. 
The  Greek  heaven  and  earth  have  passed 
away,  and  all  things  have  become  new. 
An  argument  to  have  living  force  must 
spring  from  the  life  of  the  age  which  is 
to  be  mastered  by  it.  It  must  be  the 
product  of  the  forces  which  are  domi- 
nating current  thought.  The  argument 
for  Immortality  is  like  a  book  of  sci- 
ence. It  cannot  be  written  once  for  all. 
Scarcely  is  the  ink  dry  on  the  pages 
of  the  latest  volume  of  the  scientific 
specialist,  when  a  new  discovery  is 
made,  and  certain  paragraphs  must  be 
supplemented,  and  a  chapter  here  and 
there  recast.  No  book  of  history  is  final. 
New  materials  are  brought  to  light,  or 
old  materials  are  looked  at  from  a  dif- 
ferent view-point,  and  to  the  end  of 
time  men  will  go  on  writing  newhis- 
23 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

tories  of  Greece  and  Rome,  of  Eng- 
land and  America.  The  Past  does  not 
change,  but  it  is  seen  always  in  a 
changed  perspective  and  under  a  differ- 
ent light.  To  a  passenger  standing  on 
the  deck  of  a  steamer  moving  down  the 
Hudson  River,  the  receding  landscape 
is  ever  changing.  The  hills  and  valleys, 
mountains  and  forests  do  not  change, 
but  the  winding  of  the  river,  altering 
the  position  of  the  boat,  constantly 
throws  the  features  of  the  landscape 
into  new  combinations,  and  while  old 
landmarks  are  always  fading  in  the  dis- 
tance, new  attractions  are  always  lifting 
themselves  in  the  foreground  of  a  pic- 
ture which  is  always  beautiful,  but  never 
two  hours  the  same. 

So  it  is  with  the  arguments  by  which 
are    supported  the   mighty  hopes   and 

24 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

vitalizing  beliefs  of  men.  Humanity, 
like  a  river,  is  ever  flowing,  and  men  are 
carried  down  the  moving  stream.  The 
view-point  is  ever  shifting.  Old  things 
are  seen  at  a  different  angle  and  new 
things  are  coming  constantly  into  view. 
Fresh  discoveries  throw  a  transforming 
light  on  old  situations,  and  even  the 
fixed  stars  of  heaven  are  sometimes  dis- 
sipated into  mist.  For  this  reason  no 
arguments  have  reached  their  final  form. 
Arguments,  like  the  men  who  frame 
them,  have  in  them  a  mortal  element. 
Time  burns  up  the  hay  and  wood  and 
stubble,  and  by  its  purifying  fires  melts 
the  gold  and  silver  into  other  forms  and 
sets  the  precious  stones  in  novel  pat- 
terns. Views  which  once  were  tenable 
cease  to  commend  themselves  to 
thoughtful  men.  Inferences  which  were 

25 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

at  one  time  reasonable  are  reasonable 
no  longer.  Deductions  which  everybody 
counted  valid  are  scouted  now  by 
everybody.  All  this  is  likely  to  happen 
whenever  the  situation  is  lighted  up 
by  the  flash  of  newly-discovered  facts. 
Forms  are  no  more  eternal  in  the  world 
of  thought  than  in  the  world  of  matter. 
Philosophies,  like  continents,  flow  from 
form  to  .form.  Things  apparently  im- 
movable are  suddenly  shaken  by  an 
unexpected  gust  of  the  Zeitgeist,  and 
things  supposedly  eternal  are  swept 
away  by  the  swelling  tide  of  the  world's 
mental  life,  (it  is  hazardous  to  take  for 
granted  that  an  argument  valid  for  one 
generation  will  satisfy  the  generation 
which  comes  after) 

Moreover,  the  world  is  as  capricious 
as  a  child.  It  has   its  humors  and  its 
26 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

whims.  Fashions  in  the  world  of 
thought  are  often  as  short-lived  as  are  the 
fashions  in  the  world  of  dress.  Mankind 
is  open  at  different  stages  of  its  develop- 
ment to  different  types  of  appeal.  What 
it  feels  at  one  time,  it  ceases  to  feel  at 
another.  What  it  to-day  counts  desir- 
able, it  casts  from  it  later  on  with  scorn. 
The  same  phenomena  produce  a  differ- 
ent impression  on  the  same  mind  which 
has  passed  into  a  different  mood.  These 
subjective  fluctuations,  these  tempera- 
mental caprices,  render  repeated  re- 
statements of  old  truths  imperative. 
The  old  argument  must  be  worked  into 
an  up-to-date  form.  We  deal  with  an 
old  set  of  problems  and  an  old  mass 
of  experiences,  (but  the  world  is  never 
threadbare  to  a  mind  that  has  sufficient 
energy  to  thinkj  Each  mind  must  seize 
27 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

the  old  material,  and  out  of  it  fashion  a 
home  in  which  to  dwell. 

It  is  the  task  of  our  generation  to  ad- 
just itself  to  a  new  mental  world.  The 
last  century  has  very  properly  been 
called  the  wonderful  century,  and  by 
its  inventions  and  discoveries  has  given 
the  twentieth  century  a  deal  of  difficult 
work  to  do.  Masses  of  facts  have  been 
accumulated  which  will  require  the  in- 
dustry of  a  hundred  years  to  classify 
and  understand.  The  sky  is  now  higher, 
the  horizon  is  wider,  space  is  vaster, 
and  time  is  longer.  We  possess  new 
instruments  of  analysis  and  an  improved 
apparatus  for  ascertaining  the  roots  of 
things.  Many  an  ancient  hypothesis  has 
been  exploded  by  bringing  it  into  con- 
tact with  a  fresh  fact,  and  many  a  be- 
lief long  honored  has  been  relegated  to 
28 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

the  lumber  room  of  the  mind.  Every- 
thing, therefore,  must  be  restudied,  and 
all  the  old  values  must  be  reappraised. 
Nothing  is  too  venerable  to  go  into  the 
melting  pot  and  nothing  is  too  sacred  to 
be  cross-examined  and  sifted.  Old  tra- 
ditions must  be  ripped  open,  ancient 
beliefs  must  be  tested  by  fire.  Men  are 
determined  as  never  before  to  know  the 
truth.  It  is  not  an  age  which  takes 
kindly  to  credulity  or  dreams.  Men 
must  give  a  reason  for  whatever  belief 
is  in  them,  and  the  belief  must  have 
something  substantial  on  which  to  rest. 
This  eagerness  to  sift  all  things  to  the 
utmost,  and  to  get  rid  of  all  intellectual 
dross  and  emotional  chaff,  is  not  the 
fury  of  a  diseased  and  anarchic  spirit, 
but  a  manifestation  of  vigorous  vitality 
throbbing  in  the  soul  of  a  world  that 
29 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

has  been  born  again.  The  call  to  re- 
examine all  of  our  creeds,  to  overhaul 
all  our  institutions,  and  to  take  stock 
of  all  our  mental  possessions,  however 
disconcerting  to  many  and  laborious  to 
all,  is  simply  a  necessity  thrust  on  us 
by  the  fact  that  we  belong  to  an  evolv- 
ing race  and  are  part  of  a  growing 
world. 

When  so  many  things  have  gone,  and 
so  many  other  things  are  apparently 
going,  it  is  natural  that  men  should  look 
carefully  around  them  to  ascertain  what 
is  likely  to  be  left.  How  much  of  the 
Bible  are  we  going  to  retain,  how  much 
of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  how  many  of 
those  hopes  which  religion  has  nour- 
ished, how  many  of  those  loyalties 
which  it  has  been  her  work  to  strengthen 
and  bless  ?  If  any  of  our  beliefs  are  su- 
30 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

perannuated,  we  want  to  know  which 
ones  they  are;  if  any  of  our  hopes  are 
insecurely  founded,  we  do  not  wish  to 
shut  our  eyes  to  the  truth.  If  the  stock 
of  our  convictions  is  to  be  modified,  we 
want  to  know  in  what  respects  and  to 
what  extent. 

What,  for  instance,  are  we  to  do  with 
this  old  notion  of  Immortality?  What 
becomes  of  it  when  submitted  to  the 
modern  test?  How  does  it  look  under 
the  gleam  of  the  new  lights  ?  How  does 
it  fit  into  the  new  world  with  its  wider 
horizon  and  its  larger  outlook?  What 
has  science  to  say,  and  the  new  philo- 
sophy, and  the  future  religion  ?  Has  the 
torch  of  the  new  knowledge  dimmed 
the  lustre  of  this  precious  belief?  Have 
the  professional  observers  and  experi- 
menters with  their  blowpipes  and  cru- 
3* 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

cibles,  their  microscopes  and  X  rays, 
found  out  anything  to  undermine  this 
glorious  hope  ?  Do  thinking  men, abreast 
of  the  times,  consider  Immortality  a 
reasonable  expectation,  or  is  it  only  an 
irrational  surmise,  an  audacious  con- 
jecture, a  gossamer  hope,  a  soothing 
and  delusory  dream?  If  there  be  a  life 
beyond  the  grave,  can  it  be  proved, 
verified,  demonstrated  ?  Is  this  a  ques- 
tion which  science  has  anything  to  do 
with,  or  must  it  be  left  forever  to  the 
poets  and  the  visionaries,  the  philo- 
sophers and  the  theologians?  It  is  be- 
cause we  are  living  in  a  new  day  that 
the  old  problem  of  Immortality  sparkles 
with  a  fresh  interest,  and  makes  new 
and  enlarged  claims  upon  the  attention 
of  thoughtful  men. 

It  is  a  question  which  belongs  to  all 
32 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

men  who  are  willing  to  think.  It  is  not 
the  special  property  of  the  learned  nor 
can  it  be  monopolized  by  the  experts. 
To  discuss  it  fairly  and  profitably  re- 
quires no  extraordinary  endowments, 
nor  does  the  right  to  speak  with  con- 
fidence depend  on  the  possession  of 
special  scholastic  equipment.  It  is  a 
query  which  rises  in  the  heart  of  every 
man,  and  where  shall  the  answer  be 
found?  The  Laboratory  says  :  "It  is 
not  in  me";  and  the  Library  says:  "  It 
is  not  in  me."  The  mounds  of  buried 
cities  say:  "It  is  not  in  us";  and  the 
manuscripts  of  ancient  sages  say:  "It 
is  not  in  us."  "  It  cannot  be  gotten  for 
gold,  neither  shall  silver  be  weighed 
for  the  price  thereof."  The  rich  man 
and  the  poor  man,  the  king  and  the 
peasant,  the  savant  and  the  man  in  the 
33 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

street,  stand  on  equal  footing  before 
this  perplexing  and  hoary-headed  pro- 
blem. The  answer  is  to  be  found  by 
each  man  in  his  own  heart.  The  solu- 
tion cannot  be  reached  by  one  man  for 
all,  but  must  be  obtained  by  every  man 
for  himself  by  the  forth-putting  of  his 
own  powers.  No  man  can  claim  the 
right  to  close  the  mouth  of  another,  or 
can  vaunt  himself  because  of  exclusive 
authority  to  promulgate  final  and  incon- 
trovertible conclusions. 

There  are  sundry  assumptions  lodged 
in  many  minds  which  are  a  handicap 
to  a  fair  discussion  of  this  problem,  and 
to  get  rid  of  these  assumptions  is  the 
first  step  to  be  taken  in  our  journey.  It 
is  frequently  assumed  that  a  man  who 
has  a  desire  to  believe  in  Immortality 
is  by  this  desire  rendered  incapable  of 
34 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

forming  a  judgment  which  is  sound  By 
his  feeling  he  is  warped  hopelessly  from 
the  type  of  mind  capable  of  rinding 
truth.  But  a  man  who  does  not  desire 
to  believe  in  Immortality  is  of  course 
equally  influenced  by  his  feelings,  so 
that  no  one,  it  would  seem,  has  a  right 
to  speak  upon  the  subject  but  the  man 
who  has  no  feeling  whatever,  the  man 
to  whom  the  outcome  is  totally  imma- 
terial, who  cares  not  a  whit  whether 
life  or  extinction  awaits  the  human  race. 
But  indifference  to  the  interests  in- 
volved does  not  furnish  a  man  with 
gifts  of  insight  or  insure  him  against 
errors  of  judgment.  The  man  who  is 
indifferent  to  the  interests  of  the  black 
man  is  not  the  best  of  all  judges  to  de- 
cide concerning  the  moral  character  of 
slavery.  The  man  who  takes  no  in- 
35 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

terest  in  the  distinction  between  right 
and  wrong  is  not  the  man  best  fitted  to 
declare  what  right  or  wrong  is.  There 
are  many  problems  which  cannot  be 
studied  profitably  in  a  "dry  light,"  and 
one  of  these  is  the  problem  of  human 
destiny.  A  man  fully  human  cannot 
help  feeling  on  great  issues.  Feeling 
gives  new  keenness  to  the  eyes,  and 
strengthens  the  reason  for  the  doing  of 
her  work.  Only  men  who  realize  the 
magnitude  of  the  issues  involved  can 
give  to  the  subject  the  scrutiny  it  de- 
serves, and  the  question  then  is,  Which 
desire  is  more  likely  to  lead  the  intel- 
lect astray,  the  desire  to  live  forever  or 
the  desire  to  sink  into  an  endless  sleep? 
The  feeling  that  death  ends  all  is  pos- 
sibly as  distorting  to  the  judgment  as  is 
the  feeling  that  man  lives  forever. 

36 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

It  is  assumed  often  that  a  religious 
man  cannot  speak  impartially  on  this 
subject,  because  his  religious  faith  has 
imparted  a  twisting  bias  to  the  mind. 
Religious  people  are  too  prejudiced,  it 
is  thought,  to  reach  conclusions  which 
it  is  safe  to  follow.  But  if  religion  gives 
the  mind  a  bias,  so  does  unbelief.  The 
man  who  is  not  religious  is  biassed  no 
less  than  the  man  who  is  a  worshipper 
of  God.  The  question  then  is,  Which 
one  of  these  biasses  is  more  likely  to 
cripple  the  mind  in  its  search  for  truth  ? 

It  is  assumed  again  that  many  men 
are  not  to  be  listened  to  when  they  speak 
of  Immortality,  because  of  presupposi- 
tions existing  in  their  mind,  by  which 
their  argument  is  colored  and  their  con- 
clusion predetermined.  But  no  mind  is 
free  from  presuppositions,  and   every 

37 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

man's  argument  is  colored  and  moulded 
by  the  contents  of  his  mind.  A  man  with 
an  empty  mind  is  the  last  man  in  the  world 
to  be  trusted  with  sovereign  investiga- 
tions. What  we  have  to  ask  of  any  man 
is  not  whether  he  has  presuppositions, 
but  whether  his  presuppositions  have 
their  roots  in  reason  and  are  held  in  sub- 
jection by  a  spirit  desirous  of  arriving 
at  the  truth. 

It  is  assumed  by  many  that  if  certainty 
is  not  attainable  in  the  discussion  of  any 
problem,  one  does  wisely  to  ignore  that 
problem  altogether.  But  such  a  maxim, 
if  acted  on,  would  close  every  court 
room  in  the  land.  The  courts  use  facts 
so  far  as  facts  can  be  ascertained,  but 
when  further  needed  facts  are  not  forth- 
coming, inferences  and  deductions  are 
given  the  right  of  way,  and  probability 

38 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

is  allowed  to  guide  judge  and  jury  to  a 
decision.  What  is  probably  so  is  the 
highest  result  which  the  greatest  of 
minds  in  many  situations  can  possibly 
attain  to.  Human  life,  outside  the  court 
room  as  well  as  inside,  could  not  go 
on  unless  men  were  willing  to  act  on 
probabilities. 

Everything  conspires  then  to  keep 
one  in  a  humble  mood  in  the  discussion 
of  human  destiny.  Incontrovertible  and 
absolute  certainty  is  not  attainable.  This 
fact  in  itself  should  prompt  one  to  move 
with  gentle  step.  The  extent  of  our  ig- 
norance and  the  damaged  condition  of 
our  mental  instruments,  and  the  vastness 
of  the  problem  into  which  we  desire  to 
look,  all  combine  to  teach  a  becoming 
docility,  and  have  a  tendency  to  quench 
every  impulse  to  conceited  vanity  and 
39 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

crush  every  temptation  to  put  on  airs. 
The  man  who  says  disdainfully  that  be- 
lief in  Immortality  is  absurd,  and  the 
man  who  declares  with  supercilious  and 
oracular  accent  that  men  who  reject 
Immortality  are  fools,  are  both  alike 
deficient  in  that  reverent  attitude  and 
meekness  of  temper  which  all  seekers 
after  truth  are  under  obligation  to  covet 
and  so  far  as  possible  attain.  There  is 
only  one  man  more  reprehensible  than 
the  bigots  who  dogmatically  proclaim 
either  immortality  or  annihilation,  and 
that  is  the  man  who  has  never  taken  the 
trouble  to  arrive  at  any  conviction  what- 
ever. What  shall  we  think  of  a  man, 
endowed  with  the  sensibilities  and  pow- 
ers of  a  human  being,  seeing  the  great 
river  of  human  life  flowing  by  him  in- 
cessantly toward  the  grave  without  ask- 
40 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

ing  himself  the  question,  "Whither?" 
What  an  anomaly  a  man  is,*who,  in  a 
scientific  age  when  the  human  intellect 
is  furiously  breaking  into  all  the  locked 
chests  and  dredging  all  the  deepest  seas, 
stands  unconcerned  in  the  presence  of 
death,  and  feels  no  curiosity  in  what 
lies  beyond.  It  is  an  evidence  of  mental 
weakness  if  not  of  moral  cowardice  for 
a  man  to  capitulate  before  the  greatest 
of  problems,  putting  forth  no  effort  to 
contribute  to  its  solution.  We  are  bound 
as  rational  creatures  to  face  the  ques- 
tion, "What  can  I  know?"  and  this  is 
no  more  obligatory  than  is  the  question, 
"What  may  I  hope?"  The  common 
saying  "  One  world  at  a  time  is  enough  " 
is  a  discreditable  motto,  if  man  is  a 
being  created  for  two  worlds.  It  is  dis- 
honoring to  humanity  to  assert  that  it 

4i 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

makes  no  difference  whether  men  be- 
lieve themselves  to  be  immortal  or  not. 
Men  are  always  helped  by  knowing  the 
truth.  Every  little  fact  which  has  come 
into  human  apprehension  has  assisted 
humanity  in  its  upward  way.  Such  little 
facts  as  that  water  will  boil  and  make 
steam,  that  a  stream  will  turn  a  wheel, 
that  electricity  will  carry  voice  vibra- 
tions, when  once  learned  and  acted  on, 
make  much  of  the  difference  between 
barbarism  and  civilization.  If  it  be  true 
that  man  survives  death,  then  this  is  the 
greatest  of  all  facts,  and  it  is  impossible 
for  man  to  accept  it  and  act  on  it  with- 
out changing  the  face  of  the  world.  It 
is  absurd  that  a  great  hope  can  be  sub- 
tracted from  the  stock  of  a  man's  spir- 
itual possessions  without  leaving  him 
weaker  and  poorer,  and  it  is  incredible 
42 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

that  he  should  keep  alive  in  his  heart 
the  hope  of  Immortality  without  being 
immeasurably  richer  and  stronger.  The 
timidity  which  fears  to  peer  into  the 
problem  lest  the  basis  of  man's  hope 
might  be  found  to  be  sand,  is  a  moral 
collapse  and  a  scandal.  To  prefer  a  de- 
lusion which  pleases,  to  a  truth  which 
makes  sad,  is  the  deepest  and  blackest 
of  all  skepticisms.  If  believing  what  is 
not  true  makes  the  world  better  than 
believing  the  truth,  then  is  "  the  pillar'd 
firmament  rottenness  and  earth's  base 
built  on  stubble."  He  makes  no  con- 
tribution to  humanity  who  is  too  timid 
to  love  and  follow  at  all  costs  the  truth. 
That  life  after  death  is  possible  need 
not  be  argued.  That  life  after  death  is 
probable  is  a  thesis  which  may  profit- 
ably be  considered.  A  thoughtful  man 

43 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

will  not  accept  it  without  serious  med- 
itation, and  a  careful  weighing  of  all 
the  considerations  which  may  be  urged 
on  either  side.  If  endless  life  is  prob- 
able, then  it  becomes  at  once  a  theme 
for  elevating  contemplation.  We  ought 
to  come  back  to  it  again  and  again.  In 
the  language  of  religion  it  is  one  of  the 
means  of  grace,  a  sacrament  to  be  fed 
on  and  to  be  thankful  for.  The  con- 
templation of  life  eternal  has  a  tendency 
to  exalt  the  thoughts,  to  widen  the 
sympathies,  and  to  concentrate  the  pur- 
poses. The  hope  of  going  on  quickens 
the  ambitions  and  stirs  men  to  project 
more  colossal  enterprises.  The  belief 
in  the  endless  life  tranquillizes  feeling, 
purges  passion,  cleanses  motives,  solaces 
the  ache  of  the  heart,  and  exerts  powers 
of  repression  on   impulses  which   are 

44 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

low  and  tendencies  which  work  ruin. 
It  enriches  and  enlarges  the  heart,  giv- 
ing a  new  depth  to  tenderness,  a  loftier 
dignity  to  patience,  a  fresh  radiance  to 
love.  It  checks  us  in  the  fury  of  appe- 
tite and  the  madness  of  passion,  and 
shames  us  out  of  many  a  petty  ambi- 
tion and  ignoble  scheme.  It  braces  us 
for  Gethsemanes,  and  sets  free  latent 
capacities  of  the  mind.  It  nourishes  the 
ethical  sense  and  keeps  it  from  wither- 
ing. It  quickens  imagination  and  kindles 
fires  which  burn  through  all  the  storms. 
It  wraps  the  world  in  the  folds  of  a  mys- 
tery, a  mystery  not  of  darkness,  but  of 
light.  One  can  exist  without  it,  but  why 
should  he  wish  to  do  so?  A  bird  can 
exist  without  wings,  but  a  wingless 
bird  is  defective.  One  can  do  noble 
deeds  with  eyes  that  look  no   farther 

45 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

than  the  grave,  but  why  should  one  be 
contented  with  earth's  small  horizon  if 
the  soul  is  made  for  wider  circles  and 
higher  skies?  Because  one  believes 
that  virtue  is  its  own  reward,  he  is  not 
forbidden  to  believe  that  the  reward  is 
eternal.  Joy  as  well  as  strength  is  a  part 
of  our  inheritance. 

But  a  man  to  be  secure  must  have  a 
reasoned  faith.  Aspiration  is  good,  but 
it  is  not  enough.  Surmise  is  sweet,  but 
it  is  frail  when  the  wind  blows  and  the 
floods  come.  In  the  early  and  buoyant 
years  it  is  easy  to  dream  of  bright  worlds 
innumerable,  but  in  the  days  which  are 
evil,  and  when  the  years  draw  nigh  in 
which  the  heart  sighs,  "I  have  no  pleas- 
ure in  them!  "  one  needs  to  feel  that  his 
hope  is  built  upon  a  rock.  In  the  fore- 
noon one  can  work  with  vim  and  satis- 

46 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

faction,  without  thought  of  things  tran- 
scending time,  for,  when  the  tides  of  vi- 
tality are  at  flood,  there  is  joy  in  the  mere 
act  of  putting  forth  one's  strength;  but 
in  the  afternoon,  especially  in  the  hours 
immediately  preceding  sunset,  it  makes 
a  deal  of  difference  whether  a  man  be- 
lieves that  the  dawn  is  on  his  fore- 
head, or  that  the  shadows  are  lengthen- 
ing towards  an  endless  night.  It  is  not 
enough  to  have  a  view,  an  opinion,  a 
notion.  One  needs  a  reasoned  convic- 
tion. No  man  can  give  us  this.  Each 
one  of  us  must  win  it  for  himself.  We 
owe  it  to  ourselves  to  work  our  way, 
at  whatever  pains,  to  some  definite  and 
unshakable  conclusion,  and  having 
reached  it  we  owe  it  to  our  brother  men 
to  let  them  know  the  outcome  of  all  our 
seeking.  A  well-grounded  and  steadfast 

47 


A  RESTUDY  OF  HUMAN  DESTINY 

belief  in  a  life  beyond  the  grave  is  one 
of  the  most  precious  of  all  the  contri- 
butions which  a  man  can  make  to  the 
spiritual  wealth  of  his  generation.  Such 
a  belief  is  not  a  chanceful  possession,  a 
trifle  won  in  life's  great  lottery;  it  is 
a  spiritual  acquisition,  something  earned 
by  effort,  fought  for  with  courage  and 
won  by  struggle,  maintained  in  the 
teetrTof  opposition  by  the  intrepid  en- 
durance of  an  unquailing  spirit,  and 
to  be  handed  on  as  a  rich  legacy  to 
others  who  are  also  summoned  to  fight 
the  same  battle,  and  whom  it  is  our 
privilege  to  help  to  win  the  crown. 


II 


THE   ARGUMENT   AGAINST   IMMOR- 
TALITY 

Like  all  the  great  questions  concern- 
ing the  ultimate  realities  and  issues,  the 
question  of  Immortality  has  two  sides. 
There  are  facts  which  point  to  the  soul's 
survival,  and  there  are  facts  which 
point  the  other  way.  Both  sets  of  facts 
must  be  faced  and  pondered.  There  are 
evidences  that  death  ends  all,  and  there 
are  evidences  that  death  is  only  a  new 
beginning.  Both  kinds  of  evidence  must 
be  scrutinized  and  rated.  There  are  in- 
ferences drawn  from  what  we  know 
that  the  soul  dies  at  death,  and  there 
are  other  inferences  deduced  from  the 

49 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

same  knowledge  that  the  soul  lives  for- 
ever. The  question  is,  which  group  of 
deductions  is  on  the  whole  most  solidly 
sustained.  It  is  a  question  for  the  reason, 
and  the  man  who  would  deal  fairly 
with  it  must  bring  to  the  discussion  of 
it  the  unspent  energy  of  all  his  powers. 

The  argument  against  the  life  beyond 
may  be  summarized  as  follows : 

Immortality  cannot  be  proved,  and 
science  is  averse  to  accepting  any  con- 
clusions which  cannot  be  verified.  As 
we  are  all  under  the  influence  of  science, 
we  instinctively  share  this  reluctance. 
What  cannot  be  proved  can  hardly  be 
called  essential,  and  may  wisely  be 
dropped  out  of  account  altogether.  The 
absence  of  conclusive  proof  in  favor  of 
matters  counted  fundamental  is  an  argu- 


ment against  them, 


So 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

But  to  this  it  may  be  replied  that  the 
extinction  or  annihilation  of  the  soul  at 
death  cannot  be  proved,  and  therefore 
cannot  be  admitted.  The  idea  that  death 
ends  all  is  only  a  supposition,  an  infer- 
ence, an  assumption;  and  since  the  op- 
posite supposition,  inference,  or  assump- 
tion is  possible,  the  question  is  open  for 
consideration  without  prejudice  to  either 
side.  If  science  hesitates  to  subscribe 
to  that  which  she  cannot  prove,  she  must 
wait  a  long  time  before  she  assents  to 
the  doctrine  that  death  ends  all.  And 
if  we  are  really  imbued  with  the  true 
scientific  spirit,  we  shall  not  make  haste 
to  pin  our  faith  to  the  sleeve  of  those 
who  mistake  a  mere  conjecture  for 
demonstrated  fact.  If  it  is  said  that 
Immortality  is  only  an  hypothesis  or 
postulate,  the  reply  is  that  the  opposite 
Si 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

belief  is  also  nothing  but  a  postulate  or 
hypothesis,  and  that  the  point  to  be 
decided  is,  which  hypothesis  on  the 
whole  best  fits  into  and  accounts  for  all 
the  facts. 

Coming  then  to  the  facts,  the  first 
fact  to  be  considered  is  that  appearances 
are  all  against  the  belief  in  Immortality. 
Man  as  we  see  and  know  him  decays 
and  disappears.  His  senses,  one  by 
one,  fall  into  ruin,  his  body  is  dis- 
solved, and  the  elements  of  it  are 
caught  up  by  Nature  and  put  to 
other  uses.  What  happens  to  the  body 
apparently  happens  to  the  immaterial 
portion  of  man's  being.  The  mind  as 
well  as  the  body  is  subject  to  decay. 
One  by  one  the  psychical  powers  dis- 
integrate before  our  eyes.  Memory 
crumbles,  imagination  falls  down  and 
52 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

dies,  judgment,  reason,  will,  all  the  fac- 
ulties which  give  man  distinction  and 
constitute  his  glory,  succumb  to  an  en- 
emy too  strong  for  them,  and  so  far  as 
our  eyes  can  carry  us  the  soul  is  only 
a  bundle  of  powers  tied  together  by  a 
cord  of  flesh,  the  bundle  falling  apart 
as  soon  as  the  cord  is  loosened  or  de- 
stroyed. The  energies  which  form 
the  body  separate  and  go  their  sev- 
eral ways,  never  to  be  reunited.  Our 
faculties  enable  us  to  trace  the  pro- 
cess, and  the  goal  cannot  be  disputed. 
The  inference  is  that  the  energies 
which  make  up  the  soul  also  disinte- 
grate, and  flow  back  into  the  great 
cosmos  from  which  they  came.  The 
silence  of  the  grave  is  ominous.  No  ^/^ 
voices  have  ever  come  from  it.  Science 
has  perfected  her  instruments  of  hear- 

53 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

ing  to  a  miraculous  degree  of  sensitive- 
ness, but  there  are  no  perceptible 
vibrations  from  the  tomb.  The  thick- 
ness of  the  veil  which  separates  the 
world  of  the  living  from  the  world 
of  the  dead  is  also  significant.  No  light 
has  ever  shone  through  it.  No  form 
has  ever  been  descried  on  the  other 
side.  Science  has  developed  her  in- 
struments of  seeing  to  a  perfection 
which  has  almost  converted  men  into 
gods,  but  there  are  no  discoverable 
light  vibrations  from  the  dark  king- 
dom beyond  the  grave.  The  silence  of 
the  dead  is  a  fact  that  chills  and  mys- 
tifies. In  the  words  of  Carry le :  "Thou- 
sands of  generations,  all  as  noisy  as 
our  own,  have  been  swallowed  up  of 
time,  and  there  remains  no  wreck  of 
them  any  more,  and  Pleiades,  and  Arc- 
54 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

turus,  and  Orion,  and  Sirius,  are  still 
shining  in  their  courses,  clear  and 
young  as  when  the  shepherd  first  noted 
them  on  the  plains  of  Shinar."  The  fact 
that  so  many  generations  with  hungry 
hearts  have  passionately  implored  the 
silence  to  break  into  voice,  with  no  re- 
sponse but  the  echo  of  their  wailing 
importunities,  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  there  is  no  one  within  the  shadow 
from  whom  an  answer  can  ever  come. 
Appearances  are  all  against  the  doctrine 
of  Immortality. 

But  appearances  are  often  deceiving. 
We  cannot  always  believe  our  eyes. 
We  see  the  sun  rolling  down  the  west- 
ern sky.  The  astronomer  corrects  our 
vision  by  his  reasoned  calculations. 
We  see  the  earth  standing  still.  No 
one  of  our  senses  can  detect  a  trace  of 

55 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

movement.  But  science  assures  us  that 
the  earth  is  flying  through  space  at  the 
rate  of  nineteen  miles  a  second,  and 
we  accept  the  revelation  because  it  is 
founded  on  data  which  satisfy  the  rea- 
son. Every  sensible  man  prefers  to  fol- 
low reason  rather  than  his  eyes.  The 
question  of  Immortality  is  a  problem 
for  the  reason.  It  cannot  be  settled  by 
the  eye.  There  are  problems  forever 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  optic  nerve. 

We  cannot  walk  by  sight  either  in 
science  or  in  religion.  Many  realities  are 
admitted  by  science  which  science  can- 
not see.  She  believes  with  all  her  mind 
and  heart  in  a  world  that  is  supersen- 
sible. She  believes  in  colors  which  the 
eye  has  never  seen,  in  sounds  which 
the  ear  has  never  heard,  in  an  ether 
which  man  can  never  hope  either  to 

56 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

hear  or  to  see  or  to  feel,  in  movements 
which  cannot  be  detected,  and  in  flam- 
ing suns  which  the  keenest-eyed  of  all 
the  telescopes  can  never  expect  to  find. 
Science  does  not  limit  herself  to  ex- 
istences which  she  can  see  or  hear  or 
handle.  She  willingly  assumes  what- 
ever is  necessary  to  account  for  the 
phenomena  which  spread  themselves 
out  in  the  field  of  her  vision. 

The  argument  from  silence  is  always 
a  dubious  one.  Silence  is  a  precarious 
ground  on  which  to  build  stable  con- 
clusions. The  unseen  world  is  indeed 
silent,  but  it  may  be  that  we  have  at  pre- 
sent no  faculties  to  cognize  the  voices 
of  that  world.  If  there  are  even  phys- 
ical vibrations  too  fine  to  be  caught  by 
our  eye  or  our  ear  or  by  the  most  deli- 
cate of  extant  inventions,  it  is  not  diffi- 
57 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

cult  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  spirit- 
ual beings  with  whom  our  dull  minds 
cannot  at  present  hold  conscious  com- 
munion. It  may  be  that  the  dead  have 
taken  on  a  form  which  cannot  report 
itself  to  any  of  the  senses  with  which 
we  are  at  present  endowed.  Our  senses 
are  wonderful,  but  they  have  narrow 
limitations,  and  they  carry  us  only  a 
little  way  into  the  all-encircling  mys- 
tery. It  is  possible  that  while  it  is  not 
best  for  us  at  the  present  stage  of  hu- 
man development  to  hold  communica- 
tions with  the  dead,  there  may  come  a 
time,  however,  when  latent  powers  now 
sleeping  in  us  will  be  able  to  see  and 
hear  the  things  which  so  many  genera- 
tions have  desired  to  hear  and  see  and 
have  not  been  able.  The  senses,  then, 
cannot  be  allowed  to  speak  the  final 
58 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

word  on  this  great  question.  If  the  move- 
ments of  the  solid  earth  beneath  our 
feet  cannot  report  themselves  to  our 
consciousness,  let  us  not  be  surprised 
at  our  ignorance  of  the  movements  of 
a  world  in  which  the  dead  live,  if  they 
live  at  all,  set  free  from  the  physical 
organism  by  which  it  was  possible  for 
us  to  come  into  communion  with  them 
here. 

Another  fact  which  must  be  faced  is 
the  difficulty  which  the  imagination 
finds  in  conceiving  any  such  existence 
as  that  which  the  doctrine  of  Immor- 
tality involves.  There  are  certain  for- 
midable obstructions  presented  to  the 
picturing  faculty  of  the  mind,  and  these 
stumbling-blocks  have  a  tendency  to 
render  the  doctrine  if  not  incredible,  at 
least  difficult  to  believe/  If  the  dead  are 
59 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

indeed  alive,  in  what  form  do  they  ex- 
ist? They  are  separated  from  the  body, 
and  a  disembodied  spirit  is  inconceiv- 
able. We  cannot  conceive  of  the  soul 
and  the  body  existing  separate  in  this 
world;  how  then  can  we  conceive  of 
such  an  anomaly  in  any  world?  If  you 
try  to  think  of  the  dead,  you  inevitably 
think  of  them  in  connection  with  the 
body  which  they  had  in  their  life  upon 
earth.  What  cannot  be  pictured,  the 
imagination  is  inclined  to  toss  aside  as 
unreal.  Only  the  imaginable  seems  to 
be  credible. 

But  even  if  one  were  able  to  con- 
ceive the  continued  existence  of  a  sin- 
gle soul  after  death,  he  would  meet  with 
insurmountable  obstacles  as  soon  as  he 
attempted  to  form  a  picture  in  immortal 
forms  and  colors  of  all  the  members  of 
60 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

the  human  race,  who  are  living  now  and 
who  have  ever  lived  and  who  are  going 
to  live  in  ages  yet  unborn.  The  historic 
period  presents  us  swarming  multitudes 
which  cannot  be  counted,  and  the  pre- 
historic era  brings  into  view  masses 
and  myriads  of  human  beings  which 
cannot  even  be  imagined.  When  the 
mind  attempts  to  grasp  the  innumer- 
able and  inconceivable  and  unimagin- 
able multitudes  of  the  interminable  eons 
and  ages,  it  sickens  and  falls  in  a  swoon. 
What  a  spectacle  is  presented  by  the 
story  of  human  life  on  the  earth!  Tribes 
and  clans,  nations  and  races,  continents 
covered  with  people,  most  of  them  ig- 
norant, savage,  brutish,  cruel,  and  super- 
stitious, living  without  aim  and  dying 
without  achievement, — who  can  toler- 
ate the  thought  that  all  these  countless 
61 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

lives  were  carefully  perpetuated  after 
death,  that  not  one  individual  in  all  that 
mountain  mass  of  breathing,  palpitating 
flesh  has  ever  ceased  to  be  ?  The  thought 
that  all  are  still  alive  is  to  many  minds 
repulsive,  revolting,  intolerable.  The 
thought  that  all  are  locked  in  an  ever- 
lasting sleep  is  soothing,  refreshing. 
Their  dust  is  mingled  with  the  earth 
and  Nature  makes  use  of  it  in  what 
ways  she  can,  and  the  thought  that 
their  souls  were  long  since  dissipated 
into  nothingness  brings  the  mind  relief. 
The  universe  seems  a  cleaner  place 
after  this  immeasurable  waste  and  wel- 
ter of  human  life  has  been  gotten  rid 
of.  A  millstone  seems  to  have  been 
loosened  from  the  neck  of  creation  and 
cast  into  a  bottomless  sea.  There  are 
certain  moods  in  which  the  Imagina- 
62 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

tion  cries  out  trumpet-tongued  against 
the  thought  of  Immortality. 

But  the  Imagination,  like  all  the  other 
faculties  of  the  mind,  is  not  infallible, 
and  is  often  tempted  to  put  on  airs.  So 
regal  are  her  powers  that  she  readily 
imposes  on  us,  and  all  the  resources  of 
the  critical  reason  are  necessary  to  hold 
her  in  her  place.  It  is  not  true  that  the 
unpicturable  is  impossible  and  that  what 
cannot  be  visualized  must  be  rejected 
as  incredible.  The  powers  of  the  im- 
agination are  limited,  and  there  are  wide 
domains  into  which  she  is  not  allowed 
to  go.  She  cannot  picture  a  thought, 
nor  draw  the  outline  of  an  emotion,  nor 
form  the  image  of  a  purpose.  All  the 
contents  of  consciousness  are  unpictur- 
able. We  can  think  them,  but  we  can- 
not  paint  them.    The   soul  itself   has 

63 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

never  sat  for  its  portrait.  There  is  no 
image  of  it  in  the  heavens  above  or  in  the 
earth  beneath  or  in  the  waters  under 
the  earth.  The  Imagination  has  never 
traced  the  outline  of  the  human  spirit. 
If  it  is  impossible  for  the  Imagination 
to  picture  the  soul  in  this  world,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  it  cannot  picture  it 
in  the  other.  No  one  can  picture  the 
soul  in  the  body,  and  therefore  it  need 
not  frighten  us  to  discover  that  no  one 
can  picture  the  soul  out  of  the  body. 
There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  than  are  set  forth  in  our  picture 
books.  We  shall  possibly  be  able  to 
paint  the  soul  on  the  other  side  of  death 
when  we  become  able  to  paint  it  on 
this  side. 

As  for  the  difficulty  of  picturing  a 
whole  race  of  immortal  beings,  that  is 

64 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

simply  a  proof  of  our  limitations.  We 
are  frail  creatures  and  cannot  stand  up 
under  the  weight  of  conceptions  which 
are  suggested  by  the  immeasurable  uni- 
verse in  which  we  live.  We  are  finite, 
and  we  cannot  comprehend  the  powers 
and  the  ways  of  the  Infinite.  The  Power 
capable  of  creating  all  these  innumer- 
able billions  of  human  beings,  and  keep- 
ing them  alive  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave,  is  no  doubt  capable  of  sustaining 
them  so  long  as  they  fulfil  his  purpose. 
What  his  purpose  is  we  do  not  know, 
and  until  this  is  known  we  can  pass  no 
judgment  on  the  wisdom  of  perpetuat- 
ing their  existence.  That  all  the  hosts 
of  earth's  savage  and  uncivilized  crea- 
tures should  remain  forever  in  the  same 
condition  in  which  they  found  them- 
selves when  death  overtook  them  is  not 

65 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

only  improbable  but  preposterous,  but 
to  think  of  a  universe  of  men  ever  mov- 
ing upward  in  the  scale  of  thought  and 
love  and  will  is  a  conception  both  exhil- 
arating and  satisfying.  If  we  are  to  be- 
lieve only  that  which  can  be  pictured, 
then  we  must  give  up  our  belief  in  God. 
He  is  forever  the  unpicturable  One, 
and  no  image  of  him  can  be  made.  He 
transcends  the  limits  of  all  our  powers 
of  thinking,  and  to  entertain  the  thought 
of  his  keeping  alive  all  the  souls  whose 
home  was  once  this  planet,  is  no  more 
difficult  than  to  conceive  a  power 
mighty  enough  to  keep  the  stars  all 
burning  in  the  immeasurable  depths  of 
space. 

A  third  fact  still  more  daunting  is 
that  thought  is  dependent  on  the  brain. 
Human   consciousness,   so  far   as  we 
66 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

know  it,  is  a  function  of  the  gray  mat- 
ter of  an  organ  lodged  within  the  skull. 
There  are  no  mental  phenomena  in  this 
world  independent  of  physical  organiza- 
tion. Every  phenomenon  in  conscious- 
ness is  attended  by  a  corresponding 
movement  in  the  cerebral  convolutions. 
This  is  not  theory,  but  demonstrated 
fact.  It  is  one  of  the  cardinal  facts 
with  which  physiological  psychology 
is  at  work.  It  has  been  found  that  forms 
of  thinking  are  specialized,  and  that  each 
kind  of  thinking  has  its  own  separate 
field  in  the  brain.  Injury  inflicted  upon 
any  one  of  these  brain  areas  works  havoc 
with  the  particular  form  of  conscious- 
ness associated  with  that  area.  Modify- 
ing the  structure  of  the  brain  cells  by 
an  instrument  or  by  drugs  produces 
transformations  in  the  mind,  metamor- 

67 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

phoses  in  character.  Destruction  of  any 
piece  of  the  apparatus  involves  the  loss 
of  one  or  other  of  the  mental  operations. 
The  total  destruction  of  the  brain  de- 
stroys consciousness  altogether.  The 
conclusion  is  certainly  natural,  and 
would  seem  to  be  inevitable,  that  the 
brain  is  an  organ  upon  which  the  soul 
depends.  The  salivary  glands  secrete 
saliva,  the  liver  secretes  bile,  so  does 
the  brain  produce  that  curious  product 
known  as  consciousness.  Thought  is  the 
flame  caused  by  oxygen  and  carbon 
burning  in  the  brain,  it  is  the  light 
flashing  out  from  an  electric  circuit,  it 
is  the  music  which  emanates  from  an 
seolian  harp  located  in  the  skull.  Brain 
and  mind  are  linked  together  in  an  in- 
timacy closer  and  more  wonderful  than 
the  earlier  science  suspected.  The  f  unc- 
68 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

tional  dependence  of  consciousness  on 
physical  organization  is  the  most  start- 
ling fact  which  physiological  science  has 
brought  to  the  attention  of  our  age.  No 
other  fact  seems  to  have  such  an  imme- 
diate bearing  upon  the  whole  problem 
of  the  soul's  future  as  this  one,  and  prob- 
ably no  other  fact  has  shaken  the  faith 
of  so  many  believers  in  Immortality  or 
has  thrown  so  many  persons  into  doubt 
as  to  the  validity  of  one  of  the  sovereign 
hopes  of  mankind. 

It  is  worth  while,  therefore,  to  face 
this  fact  with  clear-eyed  patience,  that 
we  may  ascertain  its  full  dimensions 
and  come  to  know  how  much  it  means 
and  proves.  The  fact  stated  again  is 
this:  Consciousness,  so  far  as  we  know 
it  on  the  earth,  is  dependent  on  the  cere- 
bral convolutions.   Thought,  so  far  as 

69 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

we  know  it,  is  a  function  of  the  brain. 
But  right  here  care  must  be  exercised 
to  keep  unwarranted  suppositions  from 
stealing  in.  Conjectures  and  philoso- 
phizings  have  a  curious  fashion  of  leak- 
ing in  around  every  well-established 
fact.  We  must  not  forget  that  there  are 
different  kinds  of  dependence  and  vari- 
ous types  of  functions,  and  whether  or 
not  the  soul  ceases  to  exist  when  the 
brain  is  dissolved,  depends  upon  the 
type  of  function  and  the  kind  of  depend- 
ence represented  in  the  brain.  We  know 
that  for  every  molecular  activity  there 
is  a  certain  change  in  consciousness, 
but  we  do  not  know  that  the  one  is  cre- 
ated by  the  other.  They  are  concurrent 
phenomena,  but  their  relationship  still 
lies  completely  in  the  dark.  It  is  not 
proved  that  molecular  vibrations  are 
70 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

converted  into  consciousness  or  that 
chemical  activities  in  the  brain  cells  are 
manufactured  into  purpose,  thought,  or 
love.  There  is  nothing  in  mental  phe- 
nomena like  anything  existing  in  the 
body.  They  belong  to  another  order  of 
existences;  and  tosaythatapinchof  gray 
matter  has  the  capacity  to  originate  an 
emotion  or  idea  is  to  assert  as  fact  more 
than  anybody  knows.  If  the  brain  gen- 
erates thought  as  the  steam  engine  gen- 
erates steam,  then  the  destruction  of  the 
body  means  the  ending  of  the  soul. 

But  science  has  as  yet  discovered  no- 
thing to  prove  that  brain  and  conscious- 
ness are  thus  connected.  It  may  be  that 
the  soul  is  to  the  brain  what  the  engi- 
neer is  to  the  engine,  and  that  the  soul 
uses  the  brain  as  a  locomotive  to  carry 
it  along  the  track  of  its  thought.  It  is 
ft 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

conceivable  that  the  soul  is  not  music, 
but  the  musician,  and  that  the  brain  is 
the  instrument  on  which  the  soul  makes 
its  music,  the  harp  on  which  the  harper 
is  playing,  the  pianoforte  on  which  the 
pianist  is  finding  self-expression,  the 
cornet  or  trumpet  through  which  the 
musician  is  blowing  spiritual  melodies. 
The  harper  is  dependent,  it  is  true,  on 
his  harp,  but  he  survives  the  breaking 
of  the  harp  strings;  the  pianist  cannot 
produce  piano  music  when  the  piano 
strings  are  unstrung,  but  his  life  runs 
on  independent  of  the  fate  of  his  piano; 
the  cornetist  does  not  cease  to  be  when 
his  instrument  is  destroyed.  It  is  not  de- 
nied that  in  this  earthly  life  thought  in 
its  human  form  is  dependent  on  the 
brain,  and  that  without  a  brain  man  on 
earth  can  do  no  thinking;  but  if  the 
72 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

brain  is  only  the  instrument  on  which 
the  soul  plays  its  mental  and  emotional 
compositions,  it  is  open  for  us  to  believe 
that  when  the  present  instrument  is 
worn  out  another  will  be  provided.  A 
universe  which  is  ingenious  enough  to 
locate  in  the  skull  a  mechanism  so  mar- 
velous as  the  human  brain,  may  be 
trusted  to  construct  an  instrument  still 
more  wonderful  to  take  the  place  of  the 
one  which  Death  has  broken  to  pieces. 
Physiological  psychology  knows  no- 
thing which  overturns  the  doctrine  of 
the  life  everlasting. 

Another  fact  thrusts  itself  upon  us, 
demanding  interpretation.  The  earlier 
stages  of  the  career  of  all  human  opin- 
ions and  beliefs  have  in  recent  years 
been  exhaustively  investigated,  and  the 
origin  of  our  belief  in  Immortality  has 
73 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

been  found  to  be  so  humble  as  to  cast 
suspicion  upon  its  value.  There  seems 
to  be  evidence  to  support  the  contention 
that  it  was  in  his  dreams  that  primeval 
man  got  his  first  notions  of  the  unseen 
world.  The  comrades  that  he  had  buried 
appeared  to  him  in  his  sleep.  He  again 
saw  their  faces,  heard  their  voices, 
fished  and  marched  and  hunted  with 
them  as  in  the  days  of  old.  In  this  way, 
so  scholars  tell  us,  our  forefathers  came 
to  believe  in  a  spirit  world  in  which 
the  dead  are  not  only  still  alive,  but  in- 
terested in  the  things  which  occupied 
their  minds  and  enlisted  their  enthusi- 
asm when  they  were  living  on  the  earth. 
Grotesque  and  fantastic  imaginations 
filled  the  brains  of  these  primitive  men. 
Their  religion  was  a  mass  of  supersti- 
tion, and  their  hearts  were  torn  and 

74 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

tortured  by  the  hideous  phantasmagoria 
which  took  shape  in  their  ignorant  and 
half -formed  minds.  Fetishism  is  the 
name  which  has  been  given  to  this  con- 
glomerate of  fancy  and  belief,  and  em- 
bedded at  the  centre  of  it  is  the  notion 
of  a  life  beyond  the  grave.  If  we  have 
no  hesitancy  in  casting  aside  the  hun- 
dred crude  and  crazy  notions  which 
sprang  up  in  those  early  days,  why  not 
conclude  that  the  idea  of  a  spirit  world  is 
of  the  same  insubstantial  texture,  a  cur- 
ious anachronism  which  has  been  al- 
lowed to  survive  already  quite  too  long  ? 
Is  it  not  likely  that  the  life  after  death 
is  only  a  mirage  projected  from  the 
desert  centre  of  a  barbaric  mind? 

But  the  value  of  any  existing  thing 
is  not  to  be  determined  by  the  environ- 
ment in  which  it  had  its  birth,  but  by 

75 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

the  role  it  plays  in  the  life  of  mankind. 
The  validity  of  a  belief  does  not  depend 
upon  its  cradle,  but  upon  the  throne 
which  that  belief  is  able  to  ascend  and 
hold.  Nothing  is  to  be  despised  because 
its  origin  is  lowly.  Were  this  a  sound 
principle  of  action,  everything  on  earth 
would  deserve  scorning,  because  every- 
thing on  earth  began  low  down.  One 
cannot  disparage  religion  by  saying  that 
it  started  in  fetishism,  without  also  dis- 
crediting science,  for  science  and  re- 
ligion began  at  the  same  point.  Science 
and  religion  were  twins  rocked  in  the 
same  cradle,  and  both  alike  have  thrown 
off  their  earlier  crudities  and  supersti- 
tions in  the  light  of  a  broader  day.  It 
is  no  condemnation  to  modern  astro- 
nomy that  it  began  in  astrology,  or  to 
modern  chemistry  that  the  first  chem- 

76 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

ists  were  alchemists.  The  earliest  as- 
tronomy believed  that  there  were  stars 
worth  studying,  and  the  first  chemists 
believed  that  there  were  elements  worth 
experimenting  with  and  combining;  so 
did  the  first  thinkers  on  human  life  and 
its  destiny  believe  that  there  is  a  spirit 
world  with  which  man  is  vitally  con- 
cerned. The  earlier  crudities  must  not 
be  allowed  to  blind  us  to  the  abiding 
convictions  which  have  outlasted  them 
all.  No  one  despises  St.  Peter's  because 
the  first  architect  built  only  a  mud  hut, 
or  the  Sistine  Madonna  because  the 
first  artist  made  a  few  awkward  scrawls 
with  a  charred  stick  on  a  rock,  or  the 
ninth  symphony  of  Beethoven  because 
the  first  musician  produced  noises  which 
would  to-day  lacerate  our  ear;  nor  is  it 
reasonable  to  reject  the  sublime  teach- 

77 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

ing  of  Jesus  on  the  life  eternal  because 
the  idea  of  Immortality  was  born  in  a 
manger  located  in  the  rude  stable  of  the 
primitive  man.  With  beliefs  as  with 
men,  it  is  not  the  start,  but  the  ending, 
which  is  most  worth  our  attention. 
Whether  the  idea  of  Immortality  be 
true  or  false,  there  is  no  reason  why  in 
either  case  it  might  not  start  in  a  dream. 
If  there  be  a  God  who  has  access  to 
the  mind  of  man,  we  have  no  right 
to  assume  he  can  make  no  use  of 
dreams. 

Still  another  fact  is  not  without  influ- 
ence in  shaping  the  conclusions  of  men 
in  regard  to  the  fate  of  the  soul.  The 
expansion  of  the  universe,  as  beheld 
through  the  eye  of  modern  science,  com- 
pels man  to  see  himself  in  a  new  light. 
The  earth  is  no  longer  the  centre   of 

78 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

creation.  We  are  the  inhabitants  of  an 
insignificant  planet  in  an  obscure  corner 
of  a  universe  too  vast  to  be  measured. 
The  starry  heavens  drive  the  old  ques- 
tion like  a  dagger  deeper  into  the  be- 
wildered heart:  "What  is  man,  that 
thou  art  mindful  of  him  ?  "  In  the  mood 
of  self-abasement  which  scientific  dis- 
covery has  forced  upon  many  minds, 
the  old  claim  to  life  everlasting  seems 
wildly  presumptuous,  and  even  to  en- 
tertain the  thought  of  it  smacks  of  van- 
ity and  unpardonable  conceit.  Frail  and 
fleeting  as  the  ephemera  of  a  summer 
day,  insignificant  as  the  insects  which 
buzz  out  their  little  hour  and  are  no 
more,  who  is  man  that  he  should  im- 
agine himself  to  be  the  darling  of  the 
universe,  destined  to  have  his  life  per- 
petuated in  other  spheres  in  which  his 
79 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

puny  efforts  may  bring  renewed  dis- 
comfitures and  his  petty  enterprises 
drag  on  to  their  customary  insignificant 
and  disappointing  goal  ?  This  is  a  frame 
of  mind  in  which  all  desire  to  think  of 
Immortality  is  extinguished.  The  doc- 
trine of  a  future  life  is  not  overthrown; 
it  is  ignored.  An  atmosphere  is  created 
in  which  the  hope  of  life  evermore  is 
asphyxiated.  Electricity  and  radium, 
time  reactions  and  antitoxins,  are  more 
worth  while  than  are  any  of  the  pro- 
blems whose  solution  can  be  reached 
only  by  the  shaky  ladder  of  probability 
or  the  blind  leap  of  faith.  This  is  the 
attitude  of  those  who  have  been  beaten 
into  crawling  self-depreciation  by  the 
repeated  enlargements  of  the  world  of 
sense  and  time.  Immortality  has  be- 
come to  many  a  man  only  "the  guess  of 
80 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

a  worm  in  the  dust,  and  the  shadow  of 
its  desire." 

But  if  modern  science  has  enlarged 
our  conception  of  the  physical  universe, 
it  has  also  widened  our  conception  of 
man.  If  the  outward  horizon  has  been 
receding,  the  inner  horizon  has  not 
remained  where  it  was.  There  are 
widening  horizons  in  man  as  well  as  in 
Nature.  Man  has  increased  in  stature 
with  every  increase  of  the  world 
which  he  is  bringing  more  and  more 
under  his  sway.  He  is  greater  than  any 
of  the  worlds  which  he  has  discovered. 
The  astronomic  bodies  are  huge,  but  he 
is  greater  than  they;  for,  as  Pascal  long 
ago  remarked,  should  they  fall  on  him 
he  would  be  conscious  of  their  fall. 
Science  has  removed  the  earth  from  the 
central  position  given  it  by  the  Ptole- 
81 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

maic  astronomy,  but  man  still  retains 
the  central  place  granted  him  by  the  old 
story  in  Genesis.  Genesis  and  science 
agree  in  placing  man  at  the  top  of  cre- 
ation, in  laying  the  physical  world  at 
his  feet  waiting  for  him  to  subdue  it,  in 
making  the  animal  creation  look  into 
his  face,  knowing  that  its  fate  is  to  be 
determined  by  his  will.  Science  and  re- 
ligion both  make  him  the  lord  of  crea- 
tion, and  never  has  he  been  so  conspic- 
uously and  indisputably  lord  as  to-day. 
The  area  of  his  knowledge  has  under- 
gone amazing  expansion.  His  powers 
of  knowing  have  been  almost  incred- 
ibly increased.  He  has  developed  the 
apparatus  of  research  to  marvelous  per- 
fection. By  the  extension  of  his  vision 
and  hearing  he  has  wrested  from  Nature 
secrets  which  she  concealed  from  the 
82 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

mightiest  of  the  ancient  kings.  His 
sovereignty  over  the  cosmic  forces  has 
now  reached  a  pitch  which  renders 
him  capable  of  achievements  which 
were  once  possible  only  to  the  genii  in 
the  fairy  tales.  He  has  become  a  mira- 
cle worker,  the  latchet  of  whose  shoes 
the  greatest  of  the  fabled  magicians  is 
not  worthy  to  unloose.  Enemies  which 
baffled  the  skill  and  the  power  of  count- 
less generations  now  lie  dead  at  his  feet, 
slain  like  so  many  serpents  by  the  spell 
of  his  wizardry.  Pestilence  and  famine 
and  diseases  which  scourged  millions 
to  their  grave  slink  away  from  him  like 
guilty  things  afraid. 

And  all  this,  it  is  evident,  is  only  the 
beginning.  Man  is  as  yet  a  child.  He 
can  only  walk.  What  will  he  do  when 
he  is  old  enough  to  run?  He  is  yet  in 

83 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

the  early  morning.  What  may  be  ex- 
pected of  him  at  noon?  In  the  glowing 
hour  of  each  new  achievement,  a  voice 
keeps  whispering  to  him:  "You  shall 
do  greater  things  than  these ! w  He  him- 
self is  the  wonder  of  wonders.  Physio- 
logical science  has  analyzed  his  body, 
and  her  conclusion  is  that  he  is  fearfully 
and  wonderfully  made.  Psychology  is 
at  work  upon  his  mind,  and  his  mind  is 
discovered  to  be  far  more  wonderful 
than  his  body.  Psychology  has  been  re- 
written as  well  as  biology  and  chemis- 
try. Personality  has  disclosed  mysteries 
as  great  as  any  found  amid  the  constel- 
lations. Under  the  eye  of  science  the  hu- 
man self  has  become  increasingly  com- 
plex and  wonderful.  We  have  not  yet 
groped  our  way  to  its  outer  boundaries. 
The  mind  is  found  to  be  immeasurably 

84 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

larger  than  was  once  imagined.  Con- 
sciousness is  only  a  part  of  the  activity 
of  the  soul.  It  is  an  island  in  an  unmeas- 
ured sea,  a  mountain-top  glowing  in  the 
sun,  with  vast  expanses  all  around  it  ly- 
ing hidden  in  the  dark.  In  personality 
there  are  depths  below  depths,  fathom- 
less abysses  into  which  we  can  only  gaze 
and  wonder.  Man  is  endowed  with  oc- 
cult powers,  the  extent  of  which  it  is 
not  possible  to  conjecture.  There  are 
in  human  nature  deep-lying  capacities 
whose  character  is  as  yet  only  dimly 
known,  and  whose  future  development 
may  usher  in  ages  of  marvels  which 
will  cast  into  commonplace  the  century 
which  we  call  wonderful.  This  is  not 
a  time  for  putting  one's  mouth  in  the 
dust,  sobbing  with  despairful  heart: 
"What  is  man?"  It  is  a  time  to  stand 

85 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

upon  one's  feet  and  exclaim  with  a  more 
jubilant  accent  and  an  augmented  as- 
surance : 

u  Thou  hast  created  him  a  little  lower  than  God, 
And  hast  crowned  him  with  glory  and  honor." 

It  is  not  conceit,  but  sober  sense, 
which  leads  to  the  surmise  that  gifts  so 
wonderful  cannot  find  full  scope  for 
their  appointed  exercise  within  the  nar- 
row limits  of  this  earthly  life,  and  that 
death  is  only  a  liberator  letting  life  out 
to  its  completion.  If  science  creates  in 
a  certain  type  of  mind  moods  of  skepti- 
cism and  despair,  there  are  other  minds 
in  which  she  creates  a  mood  not  un- 
like that  of  the  great  Apostle  when  he 
shouted :  "  O  death,  where  is  thy  sting  ? 
O  death,  where  is  thy  victory  ?  " 

Another  fact  starts  up  before  us.  The 
desire  for  Immortality  is  not  universal. 
86 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

In  many  noble  minds  it  does  not  exist. 
Millions  of  human  beings  are  apparently 
indifferent  to  the  issues  of  death;  to 
many  of  them  an  assurance  of  extinction 
would  be  a  welcome  announcement. 
They  are  weary  with  living  and  have 
no  wish  to  go  on.  They  love  to  think  of 
death  as  a  sleep  in  which  all  unsatisfied 
desires  are  extinguished  and  all  despairs 
are  slain.  There  are  minds  of  a  high 
order  to  which  Immortality  presents 
itself  as  a  dismal  hypothesis,  a  doc- 
trine unbelievable.  That  death  ends  all 
is  to  some  a  deep-rooted  conviction. 
They  walk  toward  the  tomb  with  elastic 
step,  confident  and  glad  that  there  the 
journey  forever  ends.  An  argument  for 
Immortality  has  often  been  framed  out  of 
the  sayings  of  great  men  who  have  be- 
lieved in  it.  An  argument  for  annihila- 

87 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

tion  might  be  constructed  out  of  the 
sayings  of  men  who  have  denied  it. 
Would  it  not  seem  from  this  conflict  of 
opinion  that  a  considerable  part  of  the 
belief  in  Immortality  now  existing  in 
the  world  is  due  to  religious  training? 
Impressions  are  made  upon  the  mind 
by  instruction  in  the  years  of  youth 
which  are  not  easily  effaced.  The  fact 
that  in  many  intelligent  and  cultivated 
minds  what  is  called  the  instinctive 
belief  in  Immortality  has  no  existence 
suggests  the  possibility  that  this  belief, 
wherever  found,  is  after  all  an  artificial 
creation,  and  that  however  long  it  may 
continue  to  abide  in  the  uninstructed 
hearts  of  the  masses,  it  is  a  mental  pos- 
session which  increasing  enlightenment 
is  certain  to  destroy.  If  man  is  by  na- 
ture the  heir  of  Immortality,  would  not 
88 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

some  ineradicable  presentiment  of  this 
exist  in  the  universal  heart?  Does  not 
every  fish  have  the  instinct  to  swim, 
and  every  bird  the  instinct  to  fly,  and 
every  animal  the  instinct  to  run  ?  and  if 
man  is  created  to  live  forever,  would 
not  this  fact  be  stamped  indelibly  on 
the  structure  of  every  human  being? 
Would  not  a  man  wish  to  do  that  for 
which  he  had  been  created?  If  there 
be  a  spirit  world  filled  with  intelligent 
personalities,  would  not  that  world  tug 
incessantly  at  men,  creating  in  them  pre- 
monitions and  anticipations  and  long- 
ings which  could  not  be  suppressed? 
Is  it  credible  that  so  cardinal  a  fact  as 
the  life  eternal  could  be  so  hidden  as 
to  escape  detection  by  men  of  loftiest 
intelligence  and  keenest  moral  vision? 
The  fact  that  so  many  men  do  not  be- 

89 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

lieve  in  Immortality,  or  desire  it,  is  an 
indication  that  it  is  only  a  brain-sick 
fancy  of  an  occasional  dreamer. 

The  argument  is  plausible,  but  not 
so  conclusive  as  it  sounds.  No  doubt 
the  belief  in  Immortality  is  often  nour- 
ished and  strengthened  by  early  relig- 
ious teaching,  nor  is  there  doubt  that 
the  disbelief  in  Immortality  is  often 
planted  and  watered  by  teaching  of  the 
opposite  sort.  If  some  men  are  trained 
into  a  belief  in  a  life  beyond,  so  are  other 
men  trained  into  a  belief  that  the  grave 
ends  all.  That  thousands  should  not 
believe  in  Immortality  is  by  no  means 
surprising,  when  one  takes  into  consid- 
eration the  large  number  of  enthusiastic 
and  persuasive  teachers  who  have  drilled 
their  pupils  in  the  catechism  of  unbe- 
lief. If  we  are  to  reject  belief  in  an 
90 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

endless  life  because  it  is  a  manufac- 
tured product,  we  must  discard  belief 
in  a  life  ended  by  the  grave,  for  the 
same  reason. 

The  frequent  absence  of  an  instinct- 
ive desire  for  the  life  unending  must 
not  be  given  too  great  significance. 
We  should  not  forget  the  immaturity  of 
mankind.  The  animal  instincts  are  still 
predominant,  and  the  spiritual  capaci- 
ties are  only  partially  developed.  In 
millions  of  human  beings  there  is  no  ap- 
petite for  art,  no  hungering  after  know- 
ledge, no  aspiration  after  moral  excel- 
lence. Men  as  well  as  plants  go  through 
successive  stages  of  development,  and 
not  every  one  reaches  the  goal  ap- 
pointed. Arrested  development  is  a  phe- 
nomenon met  with  in  all  the  kingdoms 
of  life.  A  certain  trait  may  be  said  to 

9i 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

be  characteristic  of  a  species,  although 
that  trait  does  not  appear  in  every  in- 
dividual member  of  the  species.  The 
desire  for  Immortality  may  be  said  to 
be  universal,  even  though  in  many  men 
it  is  not  found.  The  aesthetic  sense  is  a 
common  human  possession,  but  in  some 
men  it  is  so  feeble  that  one  might  say 
it  does  not  exist  at  all.  There  is  a  dif- 
ference in  colors,  but  many  eyes  can- 
not detect  the  difference.  Man  can  see 
the  difference,  although  many  men  can- 
not. Because  a  few  men  are  color-blind 
we  are  not  to  deny  the  human  eye 
power  to  make  a  distinction  in  colors. 
We  are  justified  in  saying  that  all  men 
have  ten  fingers,  although  an  occasional 
man  has  only  nine.  It  is  possible  to  lose 
a  finger  by  accident  or  disease,  and  it 
is  also  possible  to  be  born  with  one 
92 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

finger  lacking.  Such  exceptions  do  not 
change  the  fact  that  man  is  a  creature 
with  ten  fingers. 

Now  humanity  is  in  a  process  of  evo- 
lution, and  men  are  not  all  equally  de- 
veloped. Capacities  which  in  one  man 
are  full-orbed,  are  in  another  man  em- 
bryonic. Instincts  which  are  full-blown 
in  one,  are  latent  in  another.  Powers 
which  in  one  soul  are  controlling,  are  in 
another  soul  so  feeble  that  they  cut  no 
figure  in  the  shaping  of  the  life.  The 
student  of  history  is  prepared  to  find 
every  conceivable  variety  of  combina- 
tion of  propensities,  aptitudes,  and  en- 
dowments in  the  characters  which  take 
part  in  the  great  world  drama.  There 
are  men  who  have  no  ear  for  music, 
others  no  eye  for  art,  others  no  sense 
of  justice,  others  no  desire  for  purity, 
93 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

others  no  idea  of  pity,  others  no  con- 
ception of  altruism,  others  no  love  of 
spiritual  attainment  and  conquest.  If 
the  desire  for  Immortality  be  one  of  the 
primitive  instincts,  we  must  be  pre- 
pared to  find  it  feeble  in  many  men, 
and  in  others  undiscoverable  altogether. 
That  it  should  be  absent  from  whole 
strata  of  human  society  is  no  more  sur- 
prising than  that  the  love  of  beauty  or 
the  desire  for  moral  growth  should  be 
lacking  in  strata  equally  extensive.  It 
is  an  imperfect  world  in  which  we 
are  living,  and  many  things  fail  to  ap- 
pear in  individuals  which  are  a  funda- 
mental and  constituent  part  of  human 
nature. 

Defective  development  will  account 
for  many  things,  and  degeneration  will 
account  for  many   more.    Science   in 

94 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

tracing  the  story  of  evolution  has  much 
to  say  about  retrogression,  and  a  return 
to  lower  and  more  primitive  forms.  It 
is  not  uncommon  for  an  organism  to 
lose  its  footing  on  the  perilous  ladder 
and  go  tumbling  down  to  a  lower  rung. 
The  tragic  story  of  the  shriveling  and 
disappearing  of  unused  organs  is  one  of 
the  most  thrilling  chapters  which  sci- 
ence has  written.  Faculties  neglected 
become  the  prey  of  the  forces  of  death. 
Powers  subjected  to  no  strain  atrophy 
and  disappear.  It  may  be  that  the  organ 
of  belief,  like  other  organs,  is  under  the 
sovereignty  of  this  general  law,  and 
that  only  he  who  cultivates  a  belief  in 
Immortality  is  granted  permission  to  re- 
tain it.  If  a  man  lives  as  though  this 
world  were  all,  he  must  expect  the 
other  world  to  fade  into  a  shadowy  pos- 

95 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

sibility,  and  finally  into  a  dusky  impos- 
sibility. If  one  builds  all  his  hopes  on 
this  life,  the  life  to  come  cannot  seem 
in  the  end  other  than  vague  and  insub- 
stantial. Where  one's  heart  is,  there 
will  his  treasure  be.  Those  things  are 
ever  most  real  to  us  on  which  we  do 
most  set  our  minds.  To  banish  from 
thought  the  other  world  is  to  dissipate 
it  into  mist.  That  many  persons  do  not 
believe  in  Immortality  is  only  what  one 
might  expect  from  the  manner  of  life 
which  they  are  living.  It  is  a  life  in 
which  no  place  is  left  for  Hope.  The 
life  may  move  on  high  intellectual  and 
aesthetic  levels,  but  if  it  is  exclusively 
preoccupied  with  the  things  of  time 
and  sense  the  unseen  world  will  grow 
increasingly  shadowy,  and  an  endless 
life  will  all  the  time  become  harder  to 

96 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

believe.  Charles  Darwin  lost  his  love 
of  poetry,  music,  and  painting,  not  be- 
cause he  was  a  reprobate  or  evil  liver, 
but  because  he  gave  his  thought  to 
other  things.  Even  Shakespeare  be- 
came nauseating  to  him,  so  complete 
was  the  atrophy  of  the  aesthetic  powers 
of  the  mind.  The  enjoyment  of  the  con- 
templation of  the  spirit  world  abides 
only  for  him  who  lives  with  the  spirit 
world  evermore  in  sight,  and  to  him 
who  does  not  thus  live,  the  idea  of  the 
spirit  world  is  likely  to  become  what 
Hamlet  and  Lear  became  to  Darwin, 
unpalatable  and  revolting.  It  is  not  the 
low-lived  only,  but  the  high-lived,  the 
men  and  women  who  devote  them- 
selves with  absorbing  self-consecration 
to  high  pursuits,  who  become,  often- 
times, hopeless  of  a  life  hereafter.  Their 
97 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

pursuits,  though  high,  do  not  look  be- 
yond the  earth. 

The  absence  of  belief  in  Immortality 
is  not  in  every  case,  then,  due  to  degen- 
eracy of  intellect,  or  stunting  of  moral 
sense,  or  perversity  of  will,  but  simply 
to  a  growing  insensitiveness  to  the  fine 
things  of  the  spirit.  He  would  be  bold, 
indeed,  who  would  pretend  to  say  why 
any  particular  man  believes  or  disbe- 
lieves as  he  does.  We  do  not  know  the 
potency  of  heredity,  or  the  subtle  influ- 
ences of  physical  organization,  or  the 
moral  value  of  the  many  forces  which 
spin  and  weave  in  the  hidden  chambers 
of  the  soul.  The  modifications  of  brain 
structure  are  numberless,  and  the  vari- 
ety of  mental  feature  and  emotional  com- 
plexion is  infinite.  No  one  can  account 
for  all  the  variations  in  the  physiological 

98 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

structure  of  plants  and  animals.  Nature 
has  ways  of  breaking  through  the  canons 
of  her  established  procedure,  and  doing 
things  beyond  the  flight  of  human  antici- 
pation, and  high  above  the  reach  of  hu- 
man interpretation.  So  in  the  wide  realm 
of  human  thought  and  hope  there  are 
developments  of  belief  and  unbelief, 
growths  of  faith  and  skepticism,  tran- 
scending all  our  powers  of  understand- 
ing, and  introducing  problems  for  the 
philosophic  intellect  as  fascinating  as 
they  are  baffling.  The  spectacle  then  of 
a  noble  man  or  woman  casting  belief  in 
Immortality  from  him  as  a  burden  too 
heavy  to  be  borne,  however  it  may  be- 
wilder us,  need  not  shake  or  overturn  our 
faith.  In  a  world  like  this,  unanimity  of 
belief  concerning  anything,  no  matter 
what  it  is,  cannot  be  expected.  Upon 

99 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

every  problem,  however  complex  or  sim- 
ple, there  are  divergences  of  opinion,  and 
it  is  because  there  are  contradictory 
voices  always  clashing  round  us  that  we 
are  thrown  back  on  the  use  of  our  own  fac- 
ulties and  need  to  take  diligent  heed  lest 
we  miss  the  way.  On  every  question 
some  men  turn  to  the  right  and  other  men 
turn  to  the  left,  and  it  is  for  each  one  of 
us  to  say  which  company  he  will  fol- 
low. The  fact  that  great  men  and  true 
reject  belief  in  Immortality  does  not 
excuse  us  from  the  call  to  ponder  the 
question  for  ourselves,  nor  does  it  follow 
that  because  opinion  is  divided  the  sur- 
vival of  the  soul  is  doubtful.  A  thing 
may  be  doubtable  and  doubted,  and  yet 
remain  all  the  time  one  of  the  most  solid 
and  certain  of  all  realities.  The  division 
of  opinion  is  simply  one  of  the  factors 
ioo 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

to  be  taken  into  account  by  those  who 
work  out  the  problem.  We  are  to  ask, 
not  which  hypothesis  commends  itself 
to  the  best  minds,  or  which  hypothesis 
commends  itself  to  the  majority  of  the 
best  minds,  but  which  hypothesis  com- 
mends itself  to  the  largest  number  of 
minds  which  seem  best  fitted,  by  inher- 
itance and  genius  and  training,  to  deal 
with  a  question  of  this  nature.  The  con- 
sensus of  opinion  of  those  best  qualified 
to  speak  has  a  rightful  place  among  the 
determinant  factors  of  a  man's  personal 
belief. 

One  other  argument  remains  to  be 
considered.  The  belief  in  Immortality, 
it  is  said,  is  not  needed.  It  is  superfluous. 
Men  need  no  such  stimulus  as  it  offers, 
no  such  consolation  as  it  is  supposed  to 
give.  Indeed,  it  is  worse  than  super- 
ior 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

fluous,  it  is  mischievous,  even  perni- 
cious. It  is  a  menace  to  the  highest 
moral  life.  It  destroys  the  disinterested- 
ness of  virtue,  and  when  virtue  becomes 
calculating  and  prudent  she  ceases  to 
be  virtuous.  The  belief  in  Immortality 
has  hitherto  been  cultivated  for  the  pur- 
pose of  persuading  men  to  cease  to  do 
evil  and  of  helping  them  to  learn  to  do 
well.  To  secure  fidelity  to  high  ideals, 
prizes  have  been  suspended  in  the  other 
world,  and  to  frighten  men  from  evil 
courses  fires  have  been  kindled  there. 
But  all  this  is  enervating  and  demoraliz- 
ing. Virtue  needs  no  assistance  and  no 
sanctions.  Virtue  is  its  own  reward.  A 
man  ought  to  be  noble  enough  to  keep 
himself  clean  without  a  threat,  and 
brave  enough  to  do  right  without  the 
promise  of  a  sugar-plum.  It  is  morbid 
102 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

and  unmanly,  therefore,  to  give  one's 
thought  to  a  future  life.  To  want  to 
live  forever  is  a  sort  of  refined  selfish- 
ness. Let  every  man  give  himself  un- 
reservedly to  the  world  that  now  is, 
letting  other  possible  worlds  shift  for 
themselves.  This  way  lies  manliness, 
virtue,  morality  at  its  highest. 

Moreover,  if  the  mind  should  in  spite 
of  every  effort  persist  in  thinking  now 
and  then  of  what  the  grave  conceals, 
let  every  thought  of  personal  immor- 
tality be  carefully  excluded.  Whatever 
is  personal  is  limited,  and  the  future 
must  be  swept  clean  of  all  limitations. 
The  thought  of  an  immortality  which 
is  personal  debases,  while  the  concep- 
tion of  corporate  immortality  ennobles 
and  sets  free.  It  is  permitted  us  to  hope 
that  man  may  be  immortal,  while  men 
103 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

are  not.  The  race  may  survive,  while 
the  individual  perishes.  A  man  may 
die,  but  his  deeds  live  on.  His  soul  may 
vanish,  but  the  essence  of  his  life  sur- 
vives in  the  work  which  he  did,  in  the 
social  influences  he  set  in  motion,  in 
the  ideals  he  helped  to  glorify  and 
crown.  This  is  eternal  life  of  a  superior 
sort.  This  is  a  future  cleansed  of  every 
taint  of  selfishness  and  purged  of  all 
human  earthiness.  To  the  great  anthem 
of  humanity  it  is  permitted  for  every 
man  to  contribute  an  enriching  note,  and 
this  anthem,  over  the  dust  of  those  who 
lived  to  make  it  possible,  rolls  on  forever. 
But  should  you  find  it  impossible  to 
think  of  humanity  surviving  forever- 
more,  and  find  yourself  compelled  to 
believe  that  even  this  august  anthem 
must  some  day  die  away,  there  still  re- 
104 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

mains  this  glorious  thought  that  the 
souls  of  men  survive  in  the  soul  of  the 
sum  of  things.  Or  should  you  prefer  to 
employ  the  terms  which  religion  has 
consecrated  to  her  use,  you  can  think 
of  every  soul  losing  itself  in  God,  melt- 
ing into  Deity,  fused  in  the  great  Being 
of  whom  the  cosmos  is  the  visible  ex- 
pression. This  is  the  immortality  on 
which  there  is  not  a  blot.  All  per- 
sonal limitations  are  annihilated,  all  per- 
sonal memories  are  washed  away,  all 
personal  affections  are  dissolved,  all  per- 
sonal tendencies  and  peculiarities  and 
achievements  are  swallowed  up  in  the 
fathomless  gulf  of  the  unspeakable  and 
ineffable  Whole.  The  ultimate  goal 
of  the  soul  is  absorption  in  the  Infinite, 
or,  to  use  the  word  of  the  Sages  of  the 
East,  Nirvana. 

i°5 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

But  this  line  of  reasoning,  however 
ethereal  and  imposing,  has  dubious  foun- 
dations. If  it  is  selfish  to  desire  to  live 
on  the  other  side  the  grave,  it  is  selfish 
to  desire  to  live  on  this  side.  If  it  is  de- 
moralizing to  character  to  anticipate  life 
a  hundred  years  from  now,  it  is  demoral- 
izing to  anticipate  the  life  of  next  year, 
next  month,  next  week,  to-morrow.  It 
would  seem  that  in  order  to  live  at 
one's  best,  one  ought  not  to  want  to 
live  at  all.  But  experience  proves  that 
when  one  has  no  desire  to  live,  the  fac- 
ulties lose  their  edge,  and  the  vital 
forces  dwindle.  The  desire  to  live  is 
not  selfishness,  but  only  the  desire  to 
live  for  narrow  and  dishonoring  ends. 
The  mother  who  wants  her  life  to  be 
prolonged  until  her  children  are  old 
enough  to  face  the  duties  and  dangers 
1 06 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

of  the  world  is  hardly  to  be  condemned 
as  selfish.  One  might  desire  to  live  for- 
ever for  the  purpose  of  forever  doing 
good. 

If  it  is  vitiating  to  think  of  rewards 
and  penalties  beyond  death,  it  must  be 
contaminating  to  take  account  of  them 
in  the  life  which  now  is.  The  school- 
boy, to  be  healthy  and  normal,  must 
not  think  of  promotion;  the  clerk  must 
banish  all  desire  for  advancement;  the 
farmer  must  not  look  forward  to  the 
harvest,  nor  any  of  the  world's  work- 
ers to  the  recompense  of  their  reward. 
What  shall  we  say  of  reasoning  which 
cuts  across  the  grain  of  all  the  healthy 
instincts  and  natural  workings  of  the 
human  mind?  The  man  who  lives  in 
this  world,  heedless  of  all  consequences 
of  his  deeds,  is  called  a  madman  or  a 
107 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

fool.  If  life  beyond  the  grave  is  possible, 
why  should  not  the  possible  conse- 
quences be  occasionally  considered? 
Virtue  is  indeed  its  own  reward,  but  if 
the  reward  runs  on  forever,  why  con- 
ceal from  the  imagination  a  fact  so  glo- 
rious? It  never  hurts  us  to  know  the 
best.  The  largest  knowledge  is  the  saf- 
est ground  from  which  to  project  our 
plans  and  enterprises.  The  God  who 
so  orders  life  as  to  make  use  in  this 
world  of  the  principles  of  hope  and 
fear,  may  not  find  it  impossible  to  make 
use  of  the  same  principles  in  the  build- 
ing of  character  which  is  to  outlast  the 
stars.  The  idea  of  shutting  out  all  thought 
of  the  future  for  the  purpose  of  enhanc- 
ing the  quality  of  virtue  in  the  present, 
is  an  idol  of  the  cave.  So  long  as  man 
is  a  creature  who  looks  before  and  after, 
1 08 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

so  long  will  he  be  sobered  by  memory 
and  heartened  by  hope.  It  is  not  reason, 
but  arbitrary  caprice,  which  says  that 
hope  shall  not  wing  her  way  beyond 
the  grave. 

The  denial  of  personal  immortality 
is  the  denial  of  immortality  altogether. 
To  substitute  for  personal  immortality 
corporate  or  any  other  sort  of  quasi- 
immortality  is  to  offer  not  bread,  but  a 
stone. 

O  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible 

Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 

In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence 

has,  it  is  true,  a  lofty  sound,  but  the 
sound  when  analyzed  is  found  to  carry 
in  its  heart  a  dirge.  The  tragedy  can- 
not be  covered  by  high-sounding  talk  of 
losing  one's  self  in  Deity.  Poets  like 
Virgil  and  others  may  sing  of  the  soul 
109 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

melting  into  God,  but  the  words,  how- 
ever aesthetically  impressive,  have  no 
ascertainable  meaning.  It  is  impossible 
for  one  person  to  melt  into  another. 
Personality  robbed  of  all  the  marks  of 
individuality  ceases  to  be  personality 
altogether.  Take  away  the  qualities  by 
which  a  person  is  known  and  you  de- 
stroy the  person.  Such  expressions  as 
"  Pure  Being"  or  the  "  Abyss  of  Being " 
or  the  "Ocean  of  Being"  have  no  sig- 
nificance for  thought.  They  are  simply 
phrases  with  which  men  juggle,  self- 
deceived  and  deceiving  others.  Alfred 
Tennyson  gave  expression  to  the  con- 
viction of  the  unspoiled  human  heart 
in  the  lines: 

Eternal  form  shall  still  divide 
The  eternal  soul  from  all  beside, 
And  I  shall  know  him  when  we  meet. 
IIO 


ARGUMENT  AGAINST  IMMORTALITY 

If  the  soul  lives  at  all  after  death,  it  lives 
endowed  with  self-consciousness  and 
with  the  power  of  self-determination. 
These  are  not  limitations,  but  the  essen- 
tial conditions  of  self-activity  and  self- 
realization.  The  scintillating  phraseo- 
logy of  pantheistic  poetry  is  only  the 
purple  velvet  with  which  the  ingenious 
mind  decks  out  the  forbidding  doctrine 
of  annihilation.  If  funeral  bells  are  toll- 
ing for  one  and  all  of  us  the  march  to 
everlasting  death,  let  us  face  the  fact, 
never  wincing,  nor  attempt  to  muffle  the 
solemn  music  of  their  tones  in  the  se- 
ductive rustling  of  gaudy  and  deceitful 
phrases. 


Ill 


THE  ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

Having  considered  various  facts 
which  seem  to  make  war  upon  the  hope 
of  Immortality,  or  at  least  to  render  the 
mind  reluctant  to  rest  upon  that  hope, 
let  us  now  bring  together  the  various 
facts  which  point  in  the  opposite  di- 
rection, and  which,  while  not  proofs, 
whether  taken  singly  or  all  together,  are 
nevertheless  bits  of  testimony  of  varied 
weight,  which  must  be  taken  into  ac- 
count by  those  who  seek  convictions  in 
regard  to  this  momentous  matter. 

First  of  all,  let  us  turn  to  Science 
and  ask  her  what  she  has  to  say.  It  is 
true  that  she  cannot  say  anything  posi- 
112 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

tively  in  the  way  of  "  Yea  "  or  "  Nay," 
for  the  reason  that  Science  is  limited 
to  the  study  of  the  phenomena  of  ex- 
perience. All  such  questions  as  that  of 
Immortality  lie  entirely  beyond  her 
sphere.  No  one  now  on  the  earth  has 
ever  experienced  Immortality,  and  no 
one  is  in  possession  of  faculties  which 
are  able  to  take  cognizance  of  disem- 
bodied spiritual  existences.  The  nerv- 
ous system  is  limited  in  its  powers  of 
receptiveness,  and  is  not  able  to  estab- 
lish communication  with  a  world  in 
which  matter  does  not  play  a  part.  The 
unseen  world  is  therefore  beyond  the 
reach  of  Science.  Spirits  do  not  ac- 
knowledge the  potency  of  blowpipes, 
crucibles,  lenses,  or  retorts.  Observ- 
ation and  experiment,  the  two  great  in- 
struments of  Science,  are  useless  when 
ii3 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

one  comes  to  deal  with  the  souls  of  the 
dead. 

This  last  statement  is  by  some  dis- 
puted. There  are  those  who  will  not 
acknowledge  that  the  dead  cannot  make 
themselves  known  both  to  our  mind 
and  to  our  senses.  They  claim  that  we 
have  no  right  to  limit  the  powers  of  the 
human  intellect,  that  latent  capacities 
lie  buried  which  in  most  men  have 
never  been  developed,  and  that  there 
are  good  grounds  to  believe  that  ex- 
perimental science  will  some  day  have 
in  its  possession  a  mass  of  facts  which 
will  prove  to  positive  demonstration 
the  survival  of  the  soul  after  death.  It 
is  declared  by  a  few  that  such  facts  are 
already  in  their  possession,  but  as  yet 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  sane 
thinkers  are  unwilling  to  admit  that  any 
114 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

demonstrable  communication  between 
the  inhabitants  of  the  two  worlds  has 
been  established,  nor  are  they  willing 
to  concede  that  it  will  ever  be  possible 
by  any  perfecting  of  the  methods  of 
Science,  or  by  any  refinement  of  the 
powers  of  human  nature,  to  prove  that 
the  dead  are  still  alive.  But  whatever 
the  future  may  have  in  store,  it  is  safe 
to  assert  that,  up  to  the  present,  Science 
has  no  authentic  and  satisfying  word 
to  speak  on  the  subject  of  Immortality. 
She  cannot  prove  life  beyond  death, 
neither  can  she  disprove  it.  She  has  no 
warrant  for  condemning  those  who  be- 
lieve it,  and  she  can  furnish  only  a  du- 
bious support  to  those  who  deny  it.  She 
has  much  to  say  about  many  things, 
but  not  about  Immortality.  Her  instru- 
ments of  research  are   powerful,  but 

"5 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

they  are  impotent  in  the  realm  of  the 
dead. 

And  yet  it  is  well  worth  while  to 
listen  in  the  school  of  Science,  for  while 
she  cannot  speak  words  of  authority 
bearing  directly  on  this  problem,  she 
teaches  many  things  which,  when  duly 
pondered,  have  a  tendency  to  predis- 
pose the  mind  in  favor  of  the  life  ever- 
lasting. She  cannot  create  belief,  but  she 
can  strengthen  the  belief  which  already 
exists.  She  cannot  compel  belief,  but 
by  pointing  out  certain  facts  which  she 
has  found  in  the  course  of  her  investi- 
gations, she  can  make  it  easier  to  be- 
lieve. 

One  of  the  most  striking  of  scientific 
facts  is  that  nothing  can  be  destroyed. 
Science  affirms  that  matter  is  indestruct- 
ible, and  so  also  is  energy.  One  can 
116 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

change  the  form  of  both,  but  one  can 
annihilate  neither  of  them.  Both  of  them 
may  pass  through  many  transformations, 
but  the  mass  of  each  remains  evermore 
the  same.  This  indestructibility  of  force 
and  matter  is  the  basis  of  one  of  the 
most  famous  of  our  modern  scientific 
dogmas,  —  the  Conservation  of  Energy. 
It  is  a  doctrine  which  passes  undisputed 
through  the  entire  scientific  world,  and 
it  is  not  without  bearings  on  the  sub- 
ject now  in  hand.  If  forces  like  heat  and 
light  and  electricity  are  indestructible, 
possibly  personal  force  is  also  beyond 
the  reach  of  annihilation.  Personality  is 
a  form  of  energy,  and  if  the  cosmic  en- 
ergies with  which  the  scientist  in  his 
laboratory  is  wont  to  work  cannot  be 
destroyed,  it  may  be  that  this  highest  of 
all  the  forces  of  energy  with  which  we 
117 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

are  acquainted,  the  energy  of  the  human 
will,  also  belongs  to  the  category  of  re- 
alities which  will  abide  forever.  If  en- 
ergy is  capable  of  undergoing  amazing 
metamorphoses  when  subjected  to  new 
conditions,  it  may  be  that  man  can  take 
a  new  form  and  put  on  incorruption 
when  touched  by  the  fire  of  death  and 
subjected  to  the  play  of  spiritual  forces 
whose  home  is  in  the  unseen  world. 
This  is  not  proof,  but  it  has  a  tendency 
to  loosen  certain  prejudices  of  the  mind 
against  continued  personal  existence. 

Among  the  generalizations  of  modern 
science  the  doctrine  of  evolution  holds 
the  foremost  place.  In  its  details  and 
implications  it  splits  men  of  science  into 
conflicting  schools,  but  the  root  idea  is 
universally  accepted:  that  we  are  living 
in  a  growing  universe,  that  man  is  a 
118 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

creature  of  development,  and  that  he 
has  come  up  through  uncounted  ages 
from  an  origin  that  was  lowly.  Science 
has  opened  a  wondrous  vista  through 
which  we  see  the  past.  She  has  dis- 
closed that  interminable  flight  of  steps  up 
which  man  has  made  his  way  into  the 
possession  of  his  present  powers.  The 
struggle  has  been  a  long  and  painful 
one,  and  the  progress  has  been  pur- 
chased at  a  frightful  cost.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  a  spectacle  so  amazing,  ques- 
tions crowd  upon  the  meditative  mind. 
What  is  the  meaning  of  all  this  ?  Why 
this  vast  expenditure  of  time  and  pain 
and  blood?  How  can  we  reconcile  so 
extravagant  and  unprofitable  a  process 
with  the  workings  of  an  Infinite  mind 
at  once  rational  and  beneficent?  Surely 
some  radiant  end  is  held  in  view.  It 
119 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

must  be  a  divine  event  toward  which 
this  struggling  and  bleeding  creation 
moves.  There  must  be  an  august  and 
transcendently  glorious  finale  of  this 
dark  and  dreary  drama  which  has  been 
unfolding  painfully  through  the  ages, 
growing  brighter  with  the  tedious  and 
almost  imperceptible  gradations  of  a 
reluctant  dawn,  maintaining  even  to  the 
present  hour  distressing  marks  of  crude- 
ness,  failure,  and  imperfection,  but  fur- 
nishing, here  and  there,  sometimes  faint, 
and  sometimes  gleaming  hints  of  a  vast 
and  incomprehensible  and  heavenly  de- 
sign. By  the  enlargement  of  the  past, 
Science  has  given  the  future  new  dimen- 
sions. By  unrolling  before  our  eyes  that 
which  has  been,  she  has  awakened  in  us 
vaster  expectations  of  what  is  going  to  be. 
By  training  us  to  look  downward  she  has 
1 20 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

educated  us  to  look  upward.  The  mind 
which  beholds  the  extended  and  toil- 
some journey  which  humanity  has  made, 
leaps  by  an  innate  propulsion  into  the 
ages  yet  unborn.  In  a  world  so  large 
everything  glorious  seems  possible. 
Life  with  such  amazing  powers  of  en- 
durance and  persistence  —  why  should 
it  not  run  on  forever  ?  Why  should  man 
have  come  so  far  if  he  is  destined  to  go 
no  farther?  The  mind  recoils  in  pain 
from  the  thought  that  after  a  journey  so 
rough  and  so  steep,  he  should  in  a  mo- 
ment cease  to  be.  Science  has  lifted  us 
to  a  nobler  temper.  When  one  is  imbued 
with  the  scientific  spirit  it  is  difficult  to 
harbor  ideas  which  are  narrow  or  mean. 
The  vision  of  the  vast  sweep  of  upward- 
moving  life  predisposes  the  mind  to 
hospitality  toward  the  very  largest  con- 
121 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

ceptions  of  man's  mission  and  destiny. 
A  creature  which  has  traveled  such  dis- 
tances and  fought  such  battles  and  won 
such  victories  deserves,  one  is  com- 
pelled to  say,  to  conquer  death  and  rob 
the  grave  of  its  victory. 

If  at  this  point  some  one  suggests 
that  all  such  cravings  of  the  mind  are 
satisfied  by  the  thought  that  the  race 
goes  on  even  though  the  individual  may 
perish  by  the  way,  the  reply  is  that, 
according  to  Science,  the  years  of  the 
human  race  upon  this  planet  are  num- 
bered. The  sun  is  losing  heat  —  the  sun 
is  dying.  The  day  will  come  when  it 
will  be  a  ball  of  ice.  Long  before  that 
day  all  life  upon  our  earth  will  have  be- 
come extinct.  The  race  of  men  in  the 
physical  stage  of  its  career  will  come  to 
an  end,  and  if  only  in  the  flesh  and  on 
122 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

this  planet  it  is  possible  for  mankind  to 
exist,  then  soon  or  late  there  will  re- 
main nowhere  in  the  universe  a  solitary 
vestige  of  that  wonderful  order  of  be- 
ings once  known  as  men.  Against  such 
a  consummation  the  soul  of  Charles 
Darwin  rebelled.  "It  is  an  intolerable 
thought,"  he  wrote,  "that  man  and  all 
other  sentient  beings  are  doomed  to 
complete  annihilation  after  such  long- 
continued,  slow  progress."  While  evo- 
lution furnishes  no  proof  that  the  soul 
survives  death,  it  nevertheless  incites  in 
the  mind  a  wish  that  such  survival  were 
possible,  and  renders  it  reluctant  to  con- 
sider the  grave  as  the  goal  of  the  hu- 
man journey.  The  pictured  doom  of  the 
solar  system  renders  the  mind  more  in- 
sistent in  its  demand  that  man  shall  be 
saved. 

123 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

Our  generation  has  been  trained  by 
its  scientific  teachers  to  allow  large  sig- 
nificance to  phenomena  which  are  ubi- 
quitous and  persistent.  For  the  evanes- 
cent and  the  occasional,  modern  science 
has  scant  regard;  but  for  everything 
which  has  in  it  the  power  of  surviving 
and  expanding,  she  has  a  beautiful  re- 
spect Things  which  persist  have  a  rea- 
son, she  declares,  for  being,  and  no- 
thing can  be  permanent  which  is  not  an 
essential  part  of  the  great  world  order. 
The  permanence  of  certain  types  of 
life,  and  the  perpetuation  of  certain 
functions  in  organisms,  are  facts  of  deep 
meaning  to  a  mind  scientifically  trained. 
What  always  has  been  is  likely  to  con- 
tinue to  be,  and  however  inexplicable 
it  may  be  to  the  intellect  or  difficult  to 
justify  at  the  bar  of  the  reason,  it  is 
124 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

rooted,  we  may  confidently  believe,  in 
the  eternal  reality,  and  has  an  essential 
part  to  play  in  the  great  cosmic  scheme. 
Now  one  of  the  most  fascinating  of 
all  fields  open  to  scientific  investigation 
is  the  primeval  world.  During  the  last 
half-century  primitive  man  has  focussed 
the  attention  of  many  minds.  Our  re- 
mote ancestors  have  been  supposed  to 
hold  the  keys  which  are  going  to  un- 
lock the  doors  through  which  we  may 
pass  into  the  heart  of  not  a  few  of  the 
world's  mysteries.  No  record  left  by 
them  has  been  neglected.  Every  mark 
which  they  made  on  rock  or  metal, 
every  implement  left  buried  in  the  sand, 
every  syllable  which  has  escaped  oblit- 
eration, has  been  scrutinized  and  pon- 
dered by  men  convinced  that  in  these 
denizens    of    primeval   days   there   lie 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

clues  to  the  labyrinths  in  which  we  are 
wandering  now.  To  push  these  investi- 
gations back  to  the  earliest  utmost  has 
been  the  ambition  of  every  paleontolo- 
gist. At  his  heels  have  followed  the 
philosopher  and  the  psychologist,  eager 
to  grasp  the  meaning  of  that  long  van- 
ished world.  Among  the  many  facts  dis- 
covered none  is  more  incontestable  than 
this:  the  belief  in  the  unseen  world  is 
coeval  with  man's  origin  on  this  earth. 
From  the  beginning  man  believed  that 
life  does  not  end  at  death,  and  looked 
upon  his  comrades  whom  death  had 
hidden  from  his  eyes  as  still  living  in 
some  ghostly  world.  The  belief  was 
not  peculiar  to  any  one  tribe  or  clan, 
nor  was  it  confined  to  any  one  quarter 
of  the  globe.  It  was  ubiquitous.  Wher- 
ever early  man  has  left  legible  traces 
126 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

of  his  existence  he  has  left  evidence  of 
his  belief  in  a  life  after  death.  How  he 
came  into  this  belief  we  do  not  know. 
Why  he  came  into  it  we  cannot  say.  It 
seems  to  be  one  of  his  primeval  posses- 
sions, like  the  power  of  standing  up- 
right and  the  gift  of  speech. 

But  the  ubiquity  of  a  belief  does  not 
prove  its  validity,  for  many  a  supersti- 
tion once  ubiquitous  has  been  later  on 
doomed  to  die.  The  belief  in  a  life  after 
death  as  held  by  primitive  man  was 
immeshed  in  a  mass  of  crude  and  fool- 
ish notions  which  have  long  since  been 
outgrown.  But  while  many  a  grotesque 
and  silly  notion  has  passed  away,  the 
belief  in  the  unseen  world  as  the  home 
of  the  dead  still  survives.  Through  un- 
counted ages  it  has  held  its  ground,  and 
no  storm  or  revolution  seems  able  to 
127 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

overthrow  it.  Many  ideas  have  been 
left  behind,  many  hopes  have  been  sur- 
rendered, many  dreams  are  dreamed  no 
more,  but  the  primitive  conviction  that 
man  is  alive  on  the  other  side  of  death 
is  still  a  possession  of  every  race  of  men. 
Its  roots  run  down  into  the  deep  places 
of  the  mind,  and  seem  to  be  inextricably 
intertwined  with  man's  indestructible 
mental  possessions.  It  is  probably  a  part 
of  himself.  Nothing,  apparently,  is  able 
to  destroy  it.  Arguments  against  it  avail 
nothing.  Changing  fashions  of  opinion 
may  for  a  season  shake  it,  but  they  do 
not  uproot  it.  The  skepticism  of  the 
learned  does  not  cause  it  to  wilt.  The 
unbelief  of  the  elite  is  only  the  shadow 
of  a  passing  cloud.  Many  plausible  rea- 
sons can  be  urged  against  it,  but  they 
lack  the  power  to  overthrow.  Men  who 
128 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

throw  away  the  teachings  of  Jesus  do 
not  as  a  rule  part  with  this.  Men  who 
reject  all  religions  are  still  haunted  by 
obstinate  questionings,  which  indicate 
that  down  deep  within  them  the  germ 
of  the  old  belief  in  Immortality  is  still 
alive.  Those  who,  sick  of  life,  meditate 
suicide,  find  themselves  saying: 

"  To  die,  —  to  sleep  ;  — 
To  sleep!    perchance   to    dream, —  ay,  there's 

the  rub=  tia^Jj 

For    in  that  sleep  of  death  what  dreams  may 
come." 

This  primitive  belief  has  a  grip  on  us, 
and  we  cannot  shake  it  off.  What  gives 
it  this  vitality?  What  is  the  source  of  its 
strength?  It  lives  in  the  hearts  of  sav- 
ages. It  makes  its  home  in  the  breast  of 
barbarians.  It  builds  a  temple  in  the 
souls  of  the  men  who  have  climbed 
129 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

highest.  It  not  only  exists,  but  it  works. 
It  is  a  factor  in  human  development. 
It  is  a  force  in  social  evolution.  It  is  a 
power  in  political  and  industrial  as  well 
as  in  domestic  and  religious  life.  Tear 
it  out  of  the  human  heart  and  you 
change  the  destiny  of  the  world.  Man 
is  what  he  is  to-day  largely  because  of 
this  indestructible  belief,  this  steadfast 
and  glowing  hope.  It  is  ubiquitous  and 
it  is  persistent.  It  seems  to  meet  the 
test  which  Science  has  presented  for  de- 
termining what  are  the  things  of  high 
significance.  So  vital  and  permanent  a 
phenomenon  cannot  be  due  to  chance. 
There  is  a  reason  for  its  existence, 
and  the  reason  lies  deep  in  the  consti- 
tution of  the  cosmic  order.  Belief  in 
a  future  life  is  seemingly  an  essential 
constituent  of  our  human  world.  This 
130 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

universal  and  long-continued  gazing 
through  the  tomb  into  a  world  beyond 
is  presumptive  evidence  that  there  is 
something  there.  It  is  not  the  nature  of 
living  organisms  to  throw  out  tendencies 
persistently  toward  supports  which  do 
not  exist.  Organisms  do  not  make  re- 
sponses continuously  to  imaginary  stim- 
uli. Living  things,  so  far  as  Science 
knows  them,  respond  only  to  realities. 
If  the  heart  of  man  is  ever  feeling  after 
something  on  the  other  side  the  grave, 
if  it  reacts  upon  the  darkness  which 
death  creates,  we  have  good  ground 
for  thinking  that  there  is  a  reality  hid- 
den in  the  darkness,  a  real  world  to 
which  the  soul  of  man  belongs.  The 
fact  that  belief  in  Immortality  is  ubiqui- 
tous and  persistent  is  not  incontrovert- 
ible proof  that  man  lives  forever,  but 

*3* 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

Science  has  given  us  such  a  deep  re- 
spect for  things  which  are  universal  and 
which  abide,  that  she  has  increased  our 
reverence  for  the  primitive  and  inde- 
structible conviction  that  when  a  man 
dies  he  lives  again. 

Science  has  also  in  recent  years  given 
us  a  new  apprehension  of  the  mysteri- 
ousness  of  man's  being.  Personality  is 
being  studied  with  as  much  patience 
and  enthusiasm  as  radium  and  electric- 
ity. The  farther  the  investigations  are 
pushed  the  more  wonderful  the  human 
soul  is  found  to  be.  The  self  is  a  world 
in  itself,  and  is  inthe  possession  of  pow- 
ers the  extent  of  which  has  not  been  de- 
termined. There  are  depths  and  heights 
of  the  mind  which  cannot  be  measured. 
Sleeping  powers  lie  concealed  which 
have  not  yet  been  awakened.  Conscious- 
l32 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

ness  is  apparently  only  a  small  part  of 
our  mental  self.  Immeasurable  realms 
extend  out  beyond  the  frontiers  of  con- 
sciousness. Energies  are  locked  up 
which  have  not  yet  been  called  into  ac- 
tion ;  the  greatest  of  the  miracles  have  not 
yet  been  performed.  Hallucination,  te- 
lepathy, hypnotism,  clairvoyance,  these 
are  names  of  kingdoms  which  lie  out- 
stretched in  this  dim  shadow-land,  and 
what  may  some  day  be  disclosed  the 
keenest-eyed  of  the  prophets  cannot  now 
foresee.  All  that  we  know  is  that  hu- 
man personality  is  inexpressively,  awe- 
inspiringly  wonderful.  There  are  dim 
and  mystifying  hints  that  the  soul  is 
possessed  of  powers  which  cannot  find 
expression  in  the  molecular  action  of 
the  brain,  altogether  too  vast  to  find 
scope  for  their  exercise  in  the  limited 
*33 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

earth-arena,  and  promising  prodigies  of 
achievement  for  which  the  space  of 
threescore  years  and  ten  is  quite  too 
brief.  Here  again  there  is  no  proof  which 
cannot  be  doubted,  but  Science  by  giv- 
ing us  glimpses  into  the  abysmal  depths 
of  personality  makes  us  less  reluctant 
to  believe  that  the  soul  is  too  great  to 
perish. 

In  the  frame  of  mind  which  Science 
creates  and  fosters,  we  are  prepared  to 
listen  sympathetically  to  the  testimony 
of  Philosophy.  Philosophy  like  Science 
brings  no  incontrovertible  proofs,  but 
she  has  accumulated  a  variety  of  infer- 
ences and  deductions  which  must  be 
sifted,  weighed,  and  allowed  to  exert 
upon  the  judgment  what  influence 
they  may.  The  combined  consider- 
ations of  Philosophy  cannot  establish 

134 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

the  truth  of  Immortality  for  any  one 
who  is  determined  to  deny  it.  The  force 
of  what  she  has  to  say  is  strong,  but  not 
irresistible.  It  is  left  for  every  man  to 
conclude  for  himself  whether  he  shall 
accept  or  reject  the  doctrine  of  life  ever- 
lasting. Certainty  in  matters  such  as 
this  is  an  attainment,  and  only  those 
who  seek  with  patient  and  reverent 
hearts  find. 

Philosophy  carries  in  her  eye  the  en- 
tire universe,  the  world  within  as  well 
as  the  world  without.  To  the  philoso- 
pher the  phenomena  of  consciousness 
are  as  solid  and  significant  as  are  the 
phenomena  in  the  realm  of  force  and 
matter.  Facts,  Philosophy  insists,  are 
not  confined  to  happenings  in  the  earth 
and  sky.  They  are  found  also  in  the 
world  which  man  carries  in  his  heart. 
135 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

There  are  facts  of  consciousness  as  well 
as  facts  of  history,  and  the  inner  move- 
ments of  the  soul  are  not  to  be  over- 
looked in  framing  our  theory  of  the 
world.  Philosophy  pays  attention  to  the 
activities  of  the  intellect  and  also  to  the 
movements  of  the  heart.  She  recog- 
nizes the  value  of  the  reason,  and  she 
pays  deference  to  the  affections  and 
emotions.  The  intellect  is  only  a  small 
fraction  of  man's  total  being,  the  pro- 
cesses of  the  reason  are  but  a  fragment 
of  the  aggregate  operations  of  the  soul. 
Man  has  thoughts,  opinions,  notions, 
ideas,  and  he  also  has  attractions  and 
repulsions,  instincts  and  intuitions,  pas- 
sions and  emotions,  aspirations  and  in- 
eradicable hungerings.  All  these  mys- 
tic and  mighty  powers  must  be  called 
as  witnesses  and  allowed  to  testify  in 

136 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

the  great  investigation  concerning  the 
nature  and  the  destiny  of  the  soul.  The 
heart  has  reasons  which  the  Reason 
cannot  understand.  The  philosopher  in 
rummaging  through  the  treasure-house 
of  the  soul  finds  the  idea  of  Immor- 
tality and  also  the  desire  for  it.  He 
cannot  help  asking  if  this  desire  for  Im- 
mortality may  not  be  evidence  of  man's 
capacity  for  it.  If  there  is  an  appetite 
for  life  everlasting,  the  chances  are  that 
the  appetite  will  not  go  unsatisfied.  If 
the  heart's  aspirations  keep  leaping 
toward  eternity,  it  is  not  unlikely  that 
eternity  has  some  blessed  thing  in  store. 
The  normal  human  heart  takes  kindly 
to  the  thought  of  life  beyond  the  grave. 
It  communes  with  it  as  with  an  old  and 
faithful  friend.  The  thought  of  anni- 
hilation, on  the  other   hand,  brings  to 

137 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

the  fresh  and  unspoiled  heart  a  chill 
and  gloom.  The  soul  revolts  from  it, 
and  slinks  away  as  from  a  treacherous 
foe.  Nowhere  does  our  heart  utter  so 
vehement  a  protest  against  oblivion  as 
at  the  open  grave  of  one  whom  we 
have  loved.  The  soul  in  its  most  affec- 
tionate moments  recoils  from  the  idea 
of  extinction.  The  colder  Reason  may 
say:  "Believe  no  more";  but  the  heart 
stands  up  and  answers:  "I  have  felt." 
There  is  a  heat  of  inner  evidence  which 
compels  us  to  believe  against  the  sense. 
At  the  grave  of  a  great  man,  stricken 
down  at  the  noon  of  his  power,  there  is 
something  within  us  which  shouts  out 
against  the  thought  that  already  he  has 
passed  into  nothingness  and  is  now  no 
more  than  if  he  had  never  been.  In  its 
highest  moods  the  soul  turns  instinct- 

138 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

ively  toward  a  future  life.  It  is  its  nature 
to  do  this.  We  know  things  by  what 
they  do.  If  the  soul  is  so  constituted 
as  to  turn  spontaneously  in  its  greatest 
hours  toward  the  morning  of  another 
day,  the  rational  inference  is  that  such 
a  day  will  dawn. 

Man  has  an  ethical  sense,  an  innate 
love  of  Justice.  An  act  of  injustice 
brings  pain  to  the  developed  man,  even 
though  the  injustice  does  not  affect  his 
own  temporal  interests.  He  feels  that 
an  unjust  act  is  an  outrage  on  the  uni- 
verse, and  that  the  Eternal  Spirit  must 
be  just  even  though  the  heavens  fall. 
But  the  world  is  filled  with  cruelty  and 
foul  play.  Never  a  day  dawns  and  fades 
that  some  heart  does  not  break  under 
the  weight  of  undeserved  and  accumu- 
lated wrongs.  Again  and  again  is  truth 

139 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

crushed  to  the  earth,  and  in  many  cases 
it  does  not  rise  again  until  long  after 
the  actors  in  the  human  drama  who  saw 
its  overthrow  have  made  their  exit  to 
return  no  more.  Right  is  forever  on  the 
scaffold,  wrong  is  forever  on  the  throne. 
Vice  dressed  in  satin  rides  in  a  carriage, 
while  virtue  clad  in  rags  goes  afoot.  In 
many  a  quarter  the  poor  and  the  help- 
less are  ground  under  the  feet  of  might, 
and  there  is  no  deliverer.  Whole  gen- 
erations have  gone  groaning  to  the 
grave,  scourged  by  the  iniquity  of  rulers 
and  robbed  by  the  rapacity  of  those  who 
should  have  been  their  protectors  and 
friends.  God  is  indeed  in  his  heaven, 
but  all  is  not  well  with  the  world.  The 
moral  judgment  is  constantly  scandal- 
ized by  the  interminable  tragedy  of  the 
world's  life.  The  injustice  of  the  order 
140 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

of  events  inflicts  deep  and  dangerous 
wounds  in  the  mind  of  the  observer  of 
the  astonishing  drama,  and  where  is  re- 
lief to  be  found  ?  Only  in  the  belief  that 
this  world  is  not  all.  If  every  human 
life  ends  at  the  grave,  then  there  are 
wrongs  that  never  can  be  righted,  and 
losses  that  can  never  be  made  good. 
There  are  outrages  that  can  never  be 
atoned  for,  and  recompenses  that  can 
never  be  secured.  Without  another 
world,  the  present  world  becomes  an 
insoluble  riddle,  and  life  an  enigma 
which  tortures  the  heart.  A  second 
world  is  needed  to  render  the  first  world 
endurable.(^Life  beyond  death  is  neces- 
sary if  we  are  to  retain  unshaken  our 
faith  in  the  justice  of  the  World-Rulen) 
We  cannot  easily  bring  ourselves  to* 
think  that  we  are  living  in  a  universe 
141 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

so  ordered  as  to  bring  us  to  permanent 
moral  confusion.  If  souls,  after  life's 
fitful  fever  here,  live  on,  the  tragedy  of 
human  history  is  not  removed,  but  the 
heart  is  braced  to  gaze  upon  it  with  un- 
quailing  fortitude,  and  hope  is  furnished 
with  soaring  and  puissant  wings. 

But  it  is  not  justice  only  which  in 
this  world  fails  to  reach  its  coronation. 
There  is  nothing  which  man  hopes  or 
plans,  when  he  is  living  at  his  highest, 
which  finds  room  for  full  fruition  inside 
the  limits  of  the  earthly  life.  Man's 
reach  is  greater  than  his  grasp.  He  al- 
ways aims  higher  than  he  can  climb, 
sees  farther  than  he  can  travel,  begins 
more  than  he  can  finish.  The  human 
world  is  marred  on  every  side  by  im- 
perfections. Human  life  is  at  all  its 
edges  incomplete.  But  man  remains  the 
142 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

incorrigible  dreamer.  He  forever  hun- 
gers for  a  knowledge  he  cannot  gain, 
seeks  for  a  happiness  he  cannot  find, 
strives  for  a  beauty  he  cannot  attain, 
and  struggles  for  a  goodness  which  is 
evermore  beyond  him.  He  makes  won- 
drous progress,  but  he  pursues  a  flying 
goal,  and  death  overtakes  him  before  he 
has  reached  his  destination.  He  lays 
the  foundations  of  a  structure  which 
death  will  not  permit  him  to  complete. 
This  is  the  fate  of  all  the  generations. 
No  one  of  them  has  reached  the  con- 
summation of  its  expectations.  In  the 
midst  of  the  great  disappointment,  there 
are  voices  of  lamentation,  crying,  "  Van- 
ity of  vanities,  all  is  vanity";  but  above 
the  voices  of  defeat  and  despair  rise, 
musical  and  clear,  jubilant  and  pro- 
phetic voices  declaring  that  somewhere, 

143 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

somehow  the  heart  shall  be  satisfied 
and  its  dream  shall  come  true.  It  is  a 
thrilling  and  noteworthy  fact  that  man 
keeps  on  feeling  that  the  world  is  not 
large  enough  for  the  full  exercise  of  all 
his  powers.  Time  as  measured  by  our 
clocks  is  not  long  enough  for  him  to  se- 
cure the  things  for  which  he  longs  and 
struggles.  The  greatest  and  most  indus- 
trious men  die  with  their  enterprises 
uncompleted.  It  is  not  the  savage  who 
laments  most  bitterly  that  art  is  long 
and  time  is  fleeting,  or  who  goes  into 
the  grave  with  unfinished  plans;  it  is 
the  scholar,  the  thinker,  the  statesman, 
the  artist,  the  prophet,  the  poet,  the 
saint,  who  lay  down  their  work  when 
the  night  falls,  conscious  that  they  have 
only  made  a  start.  Why  does  man  un- 
dertake more  than  he  can  possibly  ac- 
144 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

complish,  and  why  does  he  yearn  for 
things  which  the  earth  cannot  afford? 
If  this  is  folly,  why  is  the  folly  so  per- 
sistent, and  why  is  it  most  pronounced 
in  the  highest  and  noblest  types  of  men? 
If  man  at  his  best  cannot  lay  out  his 
work  within  the  earth  horizon,  and  is 
constantly  formulating  projects  which 
extend  into  regions  far  beyond,  it  is  not 
unreasonable  to  infer  that  he  is  a  citi- 
zen of  two  worlds,  and  that  what  can- 
not be  continued  here  will  be  com- 
pleted otherwhere.  If  the  creator  of  the 
universe  is  building  a  tower  and  is  do- 
ing a  part  of  his  work  through  men,  it 
is  reasonable  to  believe  that  he  has 
counted  the  cost  and  will  not  slay  his 
servants  in  the  initial  stages  of  their 
work.  When  we  see  a  building  with 
its  walls   only  a  few  feet    above   the 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

ground,  we  conclude  that  the  builder 
has  only  begun  his  operations,  and  have 
no  doubt  that  he  will  not  cease  from 
his  labors  until  the  house  is  made  com- 
plete. It  is  the  incompleteness  of  the 
human  soul  as  we  know  it  here  upon 
the  earth,  which  gives  solid  ground  to 
the  philosophic  mind  for  its  expect- 
ation that  the  builder  man  goes  right  on 
building  after  a  cloud  has  received  him 
from  our  sight. 

The  capacity  for  progress  is  one  of 
the  proved  endowments  of  our  human 
nature.  The  love  of  improvement  is  a 
love  that  survives  from  age  to  age. 
Amazing  progress  has  been  made,  but 
it  is  not  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  mind  of 
man.  What  fails  to  satisfy  man  is  hardly 
likely  to  satisfy  man's  maker.  Human 
character  at  its  best  is  stained  and  flawed. 
146 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

The  virtues  are  only  partially  developed, 
and  the  graces  have  attained  only  a 
scrubby  growth.  It  is  hard  to  believe 
that  man  as  he  now  is,  embodies  the 
ideal  which  lay  in  the  Eternal  mind 
when  the  earth  was  planned  and  the 
structure  of  a  creature  to  be  the  owner 
of  it  was  first  conceived.  The  span  of 
earth  is  quite  too  short  to  bring  out  in 
the  garden  of  the  heart  all  the  flowers 
whose  seeds  are  planted  there.  The 
enemies  of  the  soul  are  far  too  numer- 
ous to  be  overthrown  between  the  cradle 
and  the  grave.  The  highest  powers  are 
of  a  tardy  growth,  and  the  soul  does 
not  attain  maturity  under  the  suns  of 
seventy  summers :  man  makes  such  swift 
and  wonder-working  progress  in  his 
brief  passage  across  the  earth  that  it 
seems  incredible  that  powers  so  mar- 
147 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

velous  should  be  forever  palsied  by  the 
touch  of  death.  One  likes  to  believe 
that  swelling  buds  are  not  created  to 
perish  by  an  ill-timed  frost,  but  will 
be  permitted  to  see  the  summer.  Who 
knows  but  that  all  of  the  goodness 
which  we  see  on  earth  is  but  hint  and 
suggestion  of  those  higher  developments 
of  holiness  which  shall  go  on  forever 
under  more  genial  skies?  Progress  be- 
comes a  grim  and  tantalizing  spectre  if 
we  think  of  it  as  so  weak  of  limb  that 
it  can  hobble  only  to  the  grave.  It  is 
the  prerogative  of  man  to  dream  of  an 
unending  progress,  in  which  the  soul 
shall  pass  from  strength  to  strength 
and  mount  from  one  glory  to  a  higher 
one,  ever  pursuing  and  yet  never  reach- 
ing the  inconceivable  and  unattainable 
loveliness  hidden  "  in  light  unapproach- 
148 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

able,"  the  incomprehensible  and  incom- 
municable glory  of  Him  whom  no  man 
hath  seen,  nor  can  see. 

It  is  when  philosophy  indulges  in  her 
loftiest  flights  that  she  passes  into  the 
domain  of  religion.  Indeed,  religion  in 
one  of  its  aspects  is  a  philosophy,  and 
in  its  methods  it  is  more  like  science 
than  is  commonly  supposed.  It  is  too 
often  taken  for  granted  that  in  religion 
one  must  walk  by  faith,  whereas  in 
science  one  can  walk  by  sight.  But  the 
man  of  science,  no  less  than  the  man 
of  religion,  is  obliged  to  walk  by  faith. 
Science  cannot  take  her  first  step  with- 
out a  splendid  act  of  faith.  She  must 
assume  that  the  universe  is  intelligible, 
and  that  her  processes  can  be  known. 
She  must  take  for  granted  the  reality 
of  the  perceiving  mind  and  of  that  which 
149 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

the  mind  takes  hold  of.  The  man  of 
science  is  sworn  to  be  faithful  to  the 
facts,  and  so  also  is  the  man  of  religion. 
The  facts  of  consciousness  are  as  sacred 
and  solid  as  any  of  the  facts  which  can 
be  shaken  out  of  crucibles  and  test 
tubes.  Science  believes  in  experiment, 
and  so  also  does  religion.  It  is  by  ex- 
perience that  religion  maintains  her 
power  and  wins  her  conquests.  Like 
science,  she  speaks  what  she  knows 
and  testifies  as  to  that  which  she  has 
seen.  When  we  come  to  the  testimony 
of  religion  we  do  not  come  to  a  ghostly 
witness  whose  words  are  thin  as  air 
and  whose  conclusions  are  of  such  frail 
stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of.  Religion 
is  rooted  in  man's  reason,  and  there  is 
no  more  trustworthy  voice  than  that 
with  which  she  speaks. 
ISO 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

From  the  beginning  religion  has  as- 
sumed and  asserted  the  continued  ex- 
istence of  man.  The  sacred  books  of 
the  world  appeal  to  man  as  a  creature 
who  is  to  live  after  death.  So  constant 
and  central  has  been  the  place  of  this 
doctrine  in  the  religions  of  the  world, 
that  it  is  often  taken  for  granted  that 
Immortality  is  a  distinctively  religious 
doctrine,  bound  up  with  the  fortunes 
of  some  particular  religious  faith.  Men 
prejudiced  against  religion  have  some- 
times looked  upon  this  doctrine  askance, 
assuming  that  anything  growing  out  of 
a  religious  stock  is  likely  to  be  super- 
stition or  illusion.  It  is  commonly  as- 
sumed that  it  is  a  Christian  doctrine, 
introduced  by  Christ  into  our  world, 
proved  by  him  by  his  resurrection  from 
the   dead,  and  that   if   doubt   can   be 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

cast  upon  this  alleged  resurrection,  then 
the  foundation  of  the  Christian  world's 
belief  in  Immortality  is  hopelessly  un- 
dermined. But  this  is  to  give  the  doc- 
trine too  narrow  a  foundation.  Men  be- 
lieved in  Immortality  long  before  Jesus 
came.  The  idea  that  man  survives  death 
is  not  a  novelty  introduced  by  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  It  is  taught,  to  be  sure,  in 
the  Hebrew  scriptures,  and  much  more 
plainly  in  the  writings  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, but  the  arguments  for  Immor- 
tality are  not  confined  to  the  Bible. 
Long  before  the  Bible  was  written 
there  were  arguments  for  Immortality 
which  satisfied  philosophic  and  scien- 
tific minds,  and  long  before  the  argu- 
ments were  formulated  the  belief  lived 
without  proof  in  the  hearts  of  men.  The 
belief  in  a  life  beyond  death  is  a  univer- 
IS2 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

sal  possession.  No  one  religion  can 
claim  the  honor  of  first  promulgating 
it.  The  doctrine  of  Immortality  is  a 
part  of  the  Christian  religion,  but  it  is 
also  a  part  of  other  great  religions,  and 
it  is  also  a  part  of  the  great  human  tra- 
dition in  which  all  classes  of  men  have 
a  share.  We  may  call  it  a  scientific  be- 
lief, or  a  philosophic  belief,  or  a  relig- 
ious belief.  Probably  we  name  it  best 
when  we  call  it  simply  a  human  belief, 
a  belief  that  is  the  birthright  of  every 
man  born  into  our  world,  no  matter  what 
philosophy  he  subscribes  to,  or  what 
religion  he  holds. 

To  the  Christian  believer  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  brought  Immortality  to  light, 
that  is,  he  lit  up  the  ancient  belief  by  his 
luminous  affirmations  and  still  more  by 
his  rising  from  the  tomb.  The  Christian 

*53 


r  ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

philosopher  accounts  for  the  ubiquity  of 
the  belief  in  Immortality  by  the  fact 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  light  that  lights 
every  man  who  comes  into  the  world. 
But  the  man  who  is  not  a  Christian  need 
not  join  the  doctrine  of  Immortality  with 
the  Christian  doctrines  of  incarnation, 
atonement,  and  resurrection  in  such  a 
way  as  to  feel  compelled  to  reject  the 
first  because  he  cannot  accept  the  others. 
There  are  broad  and  solid  religious 
grounds  for  believing  in  Immortality, 
apart  from  the  distinctive  Christian  dog- 
mas, and  there  is  no  reason  why  the 
mind  of  the  non-Christian  man  should 
be  prejudiced  against  the  doctrine  of  the 
life  everlasting  because  of  its  Christian 
associations. 

There  is  in  man  a  religious  instinct, 
an  instinct  which  reaches  out  toward 
154 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

a  Superior  Being  in  communion  with 
whom  this  instinct  finds  rest  and  peace. 
The  capacity  for  worship  exists  in  all 
men  in  whom  it  has  not  been  destroyed. 
Men  differ  from  one  another  in  their 
spiritual  as  well  as  in  their  intellectual 
and  aesthetic  endowments.  In  gifts  men 
are  not  created  equal.  Not  every  man 
can  write  "  Hamlet,"  or  the  "Principia," 
or  the  Wagner  operas.  Not  every  man 
can  invent  the  incandescent  lamp,  the 
aeroplane,  or  the  instruments  which  pick 
up  from  the  air  telegraphic  messages 
without  the  assistance  of  a  wire.  Now 
and  then  there  comes  into  our  world  a 
genius,  a  man  to  whom  is  given  an 
affluence  of  that  which  exists  in  some 
measure  in  all.  If  some  men  have  anf 
extraordinary  faculty  for  art,  and  others 
for  discovery  of  natural  laws,  and  others 

i5S 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

for  invention,  so  do  other  men  have  a 
phenomenal  faculty  for  discerning  the 
things  of  the  spirit.  It  is  as  unreasonable 
to  deny  the  existence  of  spiritual  genius 
as  it  would  be  to  deny  the  existence  of 
poetic  or  musical  or  inventive  genius. 
These  spiritual  geniuses  are  called  poets, 
prophets,  seers.  They  see.  They  possess 
intuition,  insight,  preternatural  vision. 
From  this  class  of  men  have  come  the 
world's  religious  leaders.  Having  seen, 
they  have  spoken.  Their  words  have 
had  in  them  a  penetrating  fire.  It  is 
given  to  some  men  to  make  themselves 
believed.  They  speak  as  having  au- 
thority, and  not  as  men  who  learn  things 
out  of  books.  They  do  not  argue.  They 
care  little  for  external  proofs  of  what 
they  say.  They  carry  the  proof  of  their 
convictions  in  themselves. 

156 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

Such  men  are  often  found  outside  the 
priesthood  of  religion.  Occasionally 
they  are  found  among  the  philosophers, 
statesmen,  writers,  poets.  When  a  man 
of  this  class  believes  in  Immortality  he 
trusts  entirely  his  own  intuitions.  His 
belief  has  not  been  handed  to  him.  It 
has  grown  up  in  his  own  heart.  Such  a 
man  was  the  Greek  Socrates,  another 
was  the  German  Goethe,  another  was 
the  French  Hugo,  another  was  the  Eng- 
lish Tennyson,  another  was  the  Ameri- 
can Emerson.  All  these  were  certain  of 
Immortality,  but  as  Emerson  expressed 
it,  they  were  all  better  believers  than 
they  could  give  grounds  for.  The  real 
evidence  is  too  subtle  or  too  high  to  be 
written  down.  It  is  this  action  of  the 
mind  which  has  created  the  great  affirm- 
ations  of    religion.    The    prophets    of 

iS7 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

Israel  were  seers  endowed  with  unique 
and  unparalleled  powers  of  vision  in  the 
realm  of  the  spirit.  They  saw  what 
seers  of  other  lands  could  not  so  clearly 
see.  Spiritual  genius  was  granted  in 
preeminent  degree  to  the  Hebrew,  as 
artistic  genius  was  bestowed  upon  the 
Greek,  and  the  genius  for  organization 
was  intrusted  to  the  Roman.  The  pro- 
phets of  Israel  saw  what  their  contem- 
poraries could  not  see.  But  wonderful 
as  they  were,  they  were  all  conscious 
of  hampering  limitations.  They  all  felt 
that  they  saw  in  a  glass  darkly.  They 
all  anticipated  the  coming  of  a  prophet 
whose  clear  eye  should  see  what  was 
hidden  from  them,  and  whose  tongue 
should  frame  a  message  to  which  they 
could  not  give  utterance, 
g  In  the  fulness  of  time  such  a  pro- 

158 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

phet  came  — Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Chris- 
tians see  in  him  the  fulfilment  of  all 
the  dreams  of  patriarchs,  kings,  and 
prophets,  and  acknowledge  him  to  be 
the  Son  of  God,  kthe  Saviour  of  the 
world.  By  well-nigh  universal  consent 
he  is  to-day  conceded  to  be  the  greatest 
of  all  the  world's  prophets.  His  name 
is  written  above  every  name.  He  had 
wonderful  eyes,  and  he  saw  more  deeply 
into  life  than  any  man  who  preceded 
him  or  who  has  come  after  him.  What 
he  says,  therefore,  on  the  destiny  of  man 
is  worthy  reverent  attention.  It  is  clear 
from  the  recorded  sayings  of  Jesus  that 
he  had  no  doubt  whatever  of  the  soul's 
power  to  survive  death.  That  such  men 
as  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob  should 
now  be  nothing  but  dust  was  to  his 
mind  incredible  and  absurd.  There  is 

159 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

fine  scorn  in  his  hot  declaration  hurled 
at  a  school  of  thinkers  who  denied  life 
after  death:  "God  is  not  the  God  of 
the  dead,  but  of  the  living."  As  to  his 
own  resurrection  he  entertained  no 
doubt.  The  conversation  of  Socrates 
with  his  friends  in  the  prison  looking 
out  upon  the  Agora  at  Athens,  and  the 
conversation  of  Jesus  with  his  friends 
in  the  upper  chamber  at  Jerusalem,  have 
often  been  contrasted,  and  may  be  studied 
with  profit  by  all  who  are  interested  in 
the  high  things  of  the  spirit.  Both  Soc- 
rates and  Jesus  were  convinced  that 
death  does  not  end  all,  and  yet  how 
different  is  the  tone  in  which  the  subject 
is  handled.  Socrates  deals  in  argument. 
He  adduces  reasons  why  he  expects  to 
live  after  the  deadly  hemlock  has  closed 
his  eyes  in  death.  Jesus  does  not  argue. 
1 60 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

He  affirms.  In  the  rich  music  of  the 
Athenian's  speech  there  occurs  an  oc- 
casional note  of  questioning  and  uncer- 
tainty, but  in  all  that  Jesus  says  there  is 
not  a  trace  of  speculation  or  conjecture, 
nothing  but  the  onflow  of  a  mighty,  im- 
perturbable conviction.  "In  my  Father's 
house  are  many  mansions:  I  go  to  pre- 
pare a  place  for  you."  He  states  it  with 
all  the  calm  certainty  of  one  who  gives 
expression  to  an  indisputable,  demon- 
strated, scientific  fact.  It  cannot  be 
questioned  that  Jesus  went  to  the  cross 
in  the  firm  conviction  that  after  death 
he  would  live  again. 

Nor  is  it  open  to  question  that  a  few 
years  after  his  death  his  disciples  were 
abroad  in  all  the  lands  declaring  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  that  death  had  lost  its 
sting  and  that  the  grave  can  win  no  vic- 
161 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

tory.  The  founder  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion had,  after  his  death,  in  some  way 
or  other  convinced  his  followers  that 
he  was  still  alive  and  in  communion 
with  them,  and  in  all  their  preaching 
the  two  words  which  had  in  them  the 
sweetest  music  were  "Jesus"  and  "Re- 
surrection." That  the  first  Christians 
believed  that  Jesus  rose  from  the  tomb 
and  made  himself  known  to  his  disci- 
ples is  proved  by  a  literary  document 

—  Paul's  First  Letter  to  the  Corinthians 

—  written  within  twenty-five  years  of 
the  crucifixion.  But  in  a  matter  of  such 
moment  it  is  fortunate  that  we  have  a 
proof  more  substantial  and  impressive 
than  any  page  of  writing  can  furnish. 
That  the  first  Christians  believed  that 
they  had  seen  Jesus  after  his  death  is 
proved  beyond  the  reach  of  contradic- 

162 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

tion  by  an  institution  which  can  be 
traced  back  to  the  century  in  which 
Jesus  lived — the  Christian  Sunday. 
This  day  is  a  memorial  of  what  the 
first-century  Christians  regarded  as  the 
greatest  of  all  events — the  resurrection 
of  their  leader.  That  the  doctrine  of  a 
future  life  was  held  in  the  forefront  of 
early  Christian  teaching,  and  that  this 
doctrine  was  foundationed  on  the  resur- 
rection of  Jesus,  is  not  open  to  dispute. 
Historians  like  Edward  Gibbon,  who 
have  scant  sympathy  with  the  Christian 
faith,  do  not  hesitate  to  acknowledge 
that  it  was  the  Christian  doctrine  of  Im- 
mortality which  helps  to  account  for 
the  rapid  progress  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion throughout  the  Roman  world. 

The  consciousness  of  Jesus  is  a  colos- 
sal phenomenon  which  cannot  be  got 
163 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

rid  of  by  any  process  of  scientific 
or  philosophic  reasoning,  and  no  one 
whose  mind  is  not  irremediably  twisted 
by  prejudice  will  endeavor  to  cover  it 
over  or  evade  it.  No  man  has  a  right 
to  claim  that  he  possesses  the  scientific 
spirit  who  shuts  his  eyes  to  one  of  the 
cardinal  facts  in  human  history — the 
mind  of  Jesus.  It  is  absurd  to  devote 
attention  to  meteors  and  comets,  bugs 
and  beetles,  worms  and  microbes,  light 
and  heat,  and  leave  unstudied  the  most 
significant  and  potent  product  which 
the  cosmos  has  brought  forth.  Man  is 
the  climax  of  creation  as  every  one  ad- 
mits, and  it  is  no  less  certain  that  the 
climax  of  humanity  is  Jesus.  However 
we  may  choose  to  account  for  him, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  he  appeared  in 
history,  and  that  one  of  the  deepest  of 
164 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

his  convictions  was  the  certainty  of 
the  endless  life.  To  him  man's  power 
to  survive  the  grave  is  an  axiom;  not 
a  question  to  be  debated,  but  a  fact  to 
be  accepted  with  joy.  It  was  not  his 
fashion  to  argue  or  to  make  collections 
of  evidences  by  which  the  soul's  con- 
tinued existence  might  be  made  to  ap- 
pear probable.  What  other  men  had 
ventured  to  suggest  as  a  daring  surmise, 
a  glowing  hope,  a  glorious  possibility, 
Jesus  set  forth  as  a  self-evident  and  in- 
controvertible certainty.  His  conviction 
deserves  to  rank  high  —  Christians  think 
that  it  deserves  to  rank  the  highest  — 
among  all  the  proofs  that  the  human 
hope  of  life  eternal  is  not  built  upon 
the  sand.  His  attitude  strengthens  the 
wavering  attitude  of  us  men  who  cannot 
share  his  insight,  and  so  frank  was  he 

165 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

and  so  full  in  all  his  communications 
to  his  fellows,  that  if  the  human  expect- 
ation of  life  after  death  were  without 
foundation,  he  most  certainly  would 
have  told  them.  When  he  says  "Be- 
cause I  live  ye  shall  live  also,"  he  crowns 
with  his  benediction  the  bravest,  sweet- 
est, and  most  far-reaching  of  all  the 
dreams  of  men. 

But  the  teachings  even  of  Jesus  are 
not  to  be  received  without  scrutiny,  and 
without  an  effort  to  ascertain  the  grounds 
on  which  they  may  reasonably  be  ac- 
cepted. Religion,  like  Science,  makes 
full  use  of  the  reason.  Like  Science  she 
employs  observation  and  experiment  in 
reaching  the  final  conclusions.  She 
proves  all  things,  and  holds  fast  that 
which  is  found  to  be  good.  She  tests 
the  spirits  whether  they  be  of  God,  be- 
166 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

cause  many  false  voices  are  sounding 
through  the  world.  By  the  fruits  of  a 
doctrine  she  judges  of  its  validity.  The 
declarations  of  religious  intuition  are  so 
many  hypotheses  which  must,  if  they 
are  to  be  retained,  be  verified  by  the 
accumulating  facts  of  experience.  Now 
what  does  experience  tell  us  in  regard 
to  this  hypothesis  of  a  life  to  come?  It 
informs  us  that  when  men  act  upon  this 
belief,  their  entire  nature  gives  evidence 
of  moving  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of 
its  being.  It  is  a  wholesome  doctrine, 
and  the  heart  feeds  upon  it.  So  also 
does  the  intellect.  Under  its  influence 
character  reaches  a  nobler  stature  and 
the  troubled  spirit  finds  rest.  If  every 
one  should  accept  the  doctrine  of  the 
life  everlasting  and  practice  it  from  day 
to  day,  who  can  doubt  that  the  world 
167 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

would  be  far  better  and  happier  than  it 
is  ?  The  doctrine  of  Immortality  gives 
us  a  worthy  view  of  man.  A  worthy 
view  of  man  is  an  essential  factor  in 
producing  a  noble  type  of  man.  Man  is 
apt  to  be  what  he  thinks  he  is.  If  he 
thinks  himself  a  creature  of  a  day, 
doomed  to  extinction  at  sunset,  he  finds 
it  easier  to  contract  his  aspirations,  and 
to  circumscribe  within  narrower  limits 
his  aims  and  enterprises.  An  ignoble 
view  of  man  lowers  our  view  of  God. 
A  lowered  conception  of  the  Eternal 
has  a  tendency  to  blight  the  highest  and 
finest  faculties  of  human  nature.  It  is 
when  men  think  high  and  worthy  things 
of  the  Power  which  made  them  that  they 
find  deliverance  from  fleshly  tyrannies 
and  come  into  a  strength  which  does 
not  fail.  The  doctrine  of  Immortality 
168 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

involves  a  lofty  view  of  God.  It  inspires 
us  with  a  holy  curiosity  to  find  out  more 
and  more  who  he  is  and  what  human 
life  really  means.  Human  society  has 
reached  its  highest  levels  in  those  re- 
gions of  the  earth  in  which  the  doctrine 
of  Immortality  as  taught  by  Jesus  has 
obtained  firmest  lodgment  in  the  minds 
of  men. 

"  The  truths  which  are  most  essential 
for  us  to  know/'  says  James  Anthony 
Froude,  "cannot  be  discerned  by  specu- 
lative arguments.  Chemistry  cannot  tell 
us  why  some  food  is  wholesome  and 
other  food  is  poisonous.  That  food  is 
best  for  us  which  best  nourishes  the 
body  into  health  and  vigor."  What  is 
true  of  the  body  is  in  this  respect  true 
also  of  the  mind.  Neither  philosophy 
nor  science  nor  religion  can  tell  by 
169 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

looking  at  them  which  beliefs  are  true 
and  which  are  false.  This  must  be  found 
out  by  experience.  The  doctrine  of  An- 
nihilation and  the  doctrine  of  Immor- 
tality are  both  plausible  doctrines.  In 
support  of  each  of  them,  much  may  be 
said.  The  speculative  reason  has  no 
power  to  detect  which  one  is  true  and 
which  one  is  false.  The  only  thing  for 
us  to  do  is  to  note  the  effect  of  both 
doctrines  on  the  lives  of  those  who  ac- 
cept them.  The  observation  must  be 
extended  over  wide  areas  of  time  and 
must  include  a  multitude  of  persons. 
The  question  is  not,  Can  one  man  be  a 
praiseworthy  citizen  and  build  a  charac- 
ter both  noble  and  strong,  while  stead- 
fastly believing  that  all  life  ends  at  the 
grave?  for  so  wonderful  are  the  re- 
sources of  our  human  nature  that  it  is 
170 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

possible  for  isolated  individuals  to  defy 
all  laws  and  calculations  and  still  achieve 
results  which  by  the  common  experi- 
ence of  mankind  would  have  been  de- 
clared impossible.  There  is  a  modern 
stoicism  which,  while  rejecting  all 
thought  of  a  life  beyond  death,  breathes 
a  spirit  so  robust  and  lofty,  and  is  found 
connected  with  a  character  so  admirable, 
that  some  have  been  inclined  to  ques- 
tion whether  a  belief  in  Immortality  is 
after  all  an  important  force  in  the  stimu- 
lating of  human  faculty  and  the  mould- 
ing of  human  lives.  In  the  presence  of 
heroic  spirits  who  have  abandoned  all 
hope  of  a  life  to  come,  making  their  way 
triumphantly  far  up  the  heights,  it  is 
easy  to  conclude  that  it  makes  no  dif- 
ference whether  a  man  believes  in  an- 
other world  or  not.  But  it  is  not  safe  to 
171 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

judge  the  truth  or  falsity  of  a  doctrine 
by  its  observable  effects  upon  occa- 
sional and  exceptional  lives.  To  ascer- 
tain the  worth  and  validity  of  a  belief 
one  must  study  its  workings  in  the  large. 
We  must  note  what  it  does  with  the 
average  man.  We  must  observe  its 
fruits  in  the  long  run.  We  must  meas- 
ure its  influence  on  the  general  tone  of 
feeling  and  on  the  trend  of  communal 
action.  Thus  studied,  is  there  room  for 
dispute  that  the  belief  in  Immortality 
elevates  and  purifies,  invigorates  and 
brightens,  while  the  belief  in  extinction 
depresses  and  weakens,  making  vic- 
torious life  more  difficult,  and  sweeping 
much  of  the  sunlight  from  the  sky? 
Those  who  have  suffered  most  know 
best  the  value  of  the  hope  of  the  end- 
less life.  Robert  Burns,  in  a  letter  to 
172 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

Alexander  Cunningham,  gave  expres- 
sion to  the  conviction  which  is  deep 
rooted  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  labor 
and  are  heavy  laden:  "There  are  two 
great  pillars  that  bear  us  up  amid  the 
wreck  of  misfortune  and  misery.  The 
one  is  composed  of  a  certain  noble,  stub- 
born something  in  man,  known  by  the 
name  of  courage,  fortitude,  magna- 
nimity. The  other  is  made  up  of  those 
feelings  and  sentiments  which,  however 
the  skeptic  may  deny  them  or  the  en- 
thusiast may  disfigure  them,  are  yet,  I 
am  convinced,  original  and  component 
parts  of  the  human  soul,  those  senses 
of  the  mind  —  if  I  may  be  allowed  the 
expression  —  which  connect  us  with, 
and  link  us  to  those  awful,  obscure 
realities:  an  all-powerful  and  equally 
beneficent  God,  and  a  world  to  come, 
173 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

beyond  death  and  the  grave."  If  there 
is  an  occasional  human  being  who  can 
keep  the  song  in  his  heart  and  dispense 
with  the  second  of  what  the  Scottish 
poet  calls  the  pillars  which  bear  us  up, 
the  majority  of  men  are  in  need  of  both 
of  them.  What  we  need  to  bear  us  up 
we  may  safely  accept  as  true. 

If  a  man  questions  the  soul's  survival 
of  death,  how  shall  he  escape  from  his 
skepticism?  By  making  his  life  larger. 
How  shall  he  overcome  the  doubts 
which  he  has  inherited  or  acquired? 
By  the  daily  practice  of  Immortality. 
Let  him  follow  the  injunction  of  the 
great  Apostle:  "Set  your  mind  on  the 
things  that  are  above,  not  on  the  things 
that  are  upon  the  earth."  To  feel  as- 
sured that  one  is  indeed  a  son  of  God, 
one  must  live  like  a  son  of  God.  To 
174 


ARGUMENT  FOR  IMMORTALITY 

attain  confidence  that  one  lives  forever, 
he  must  live  to-day  like  an  Immortal. 
If  any  man  willeth  to  do  God's  will, 
he  shall  know'  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus, 
whether  it  be  of  God  or  whether  he 
spoke  from  himself. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S    .  A 


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